


Make Me Wanna Die

by JoliePrudence



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Biting, Blood Drinking, Blood and Injury, Blue Moon, Charmie, F/F, Horny Teenagers, Human/Vampire Relationship, M/M, Vampires, Werewolves, pretty reckless, sex with a vampire, some violence, vampire timmy, you make me wanna die
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:07:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 45,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26278384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoliePrudence/pseuds/JoliePrudence
Summary: After a night of celebration at a local club, Armie wakes up in a strange apartment with no recollection of what happened the night prior. In walks Timmy and Armie is inexplicably drawn to him.  When Timmy finally reveals the truth of how he and Armie met, Armie is understandably frightened.  Yet he can’t stop thinking about the young man who saved his life.
Relationships: Timothée Chalamet/Armie Hammer
Comments: 193
Kudos: 155





	1. Take Me - I'm Alive

**Author's Note:**

> I love all things supernatural and I love all things Charmie. I particularly love the idea of Vampire Timmy. I had been thinking about how to write this story for a while and the structure came to me one day when I heard the song You Make Me Wanna Die by the Pretty Reckless. 
> 
> This fic title is obviously taken from the song but each chapter title is also a lyric from the track. I hope you like the concept and enjoy discovering this story along with me.

[ ](https://ibb.co/8BFdhVt)

The first thing I realized when I woke up was that I wasn’t in my own bed. I knew this before I even opened my eyes. Everything was too soft, too fluffy. There was too much fabric and yet I was comfortable. I felt swaddled, like I’d sunken into a feather mattress. The sheets were satin, or silk; they felt smooth and cool against my arms, my legs, my chest, my.. Fuck! I was naked.

I tried to remember who I’d gone home with but I couldn’t recall anything passed the moment I had left my apartment. Not clearly anyway. Which was concerning. I was going to an event organized to celebrate the final curtain on the Broadway play I’d just starred in. The producers had rented out a club and organized a massive party to thank the cast and the crew for a successful run. Did I even make it there? I vaguely remembered hailing a cab and signing a few autographs but that was it. 

Eyes still closed, I listened, trying to assess my surroundings but all I could hear was the sound of my own breathing. I cracked an eyelid and was met by the muted darkness of drawn curtains against full daylight. So, it was morning. I looked to my left, readying myself for just about anyone or anything at this point but I was alone. The other side of the bed didn’t even seem to have been slept in, with the many blankets, duvet and pillows all staked and pulled neatly. Weird. Why was I naked if I had slept alone? 

I sat up to get a better look and immediately spotted my clothes from the night before, neatly folded and waiting for me on the padded bench at the foot of the bed. I got up and got dressed, surprised that everything had been cleaned, stretched and pressed. I felt for keys and a cellphone but my pockets were empty. Fuck! 

The room was small. Well, not small but smaller than I had expected given the luxuriousness of the bed, which was obviously the focal point of the space considering the relative sparseness of the rest. There was a clean lined dresser against the far wall, a matching chair in a corner, long elegant thick curtains framing the three windows on the left and then there was the bed. King sized, high off the ground, layered with thick duvets and pillows in dark expensive looking fabrics. It was sumptuous but not frilly. There was no headboard. The back wall was brick and contrasted beautifully with the pillows that were propped up against it. There was no art on the walls either other than a large cityscape hung above the bed that looked to be New York at the turn of the century and on a barely there bedside table, there was a small frame with a picture of a little girl and a male figure holding hands, taken from behind as though they were walking away from the photographer. 

I looked around the room and couldn’t find my shoes. Dammit. Sneaking out barefeet, without my phone or my wallet, was going to be difficult. I opened the door a crack and at first heard nothing. The hallway mirrored the room. It was opulent but not gaudy with clean lined metal and glass console tables against dark walls with vase arrangements of multi colored wildflowers on each one. There was no art again. Just photographs. I glanced at them as I padded my way down a plush shaggy white floor-runner and noted that it was likely the same little girl as the picture on the bedside table in many of them. There were others as well, family portraits probably as everyone in them seemed to have an air of resemblance.

Laughter, light and intimate, caught my ear and I tensed. I wasn’t alone after all. I followed the sound to a large kitchen, all white marble, intricate wainscoting cupboards, navy brocade fabrics and again, colorful wildflower arrangements on the massive central island and the counter tops. The laughter stopped and a "look who finally woke up" followed by a little chiming giggle directed my attention toward the breakfast nook. 

For a moment I was struck by the sight. It was a beautiful example of French country decor. I knew this because in a past life I’d been married to a self proclaimed interior decorator, instagram influencer, pinterest whatever she was. But that was over I reminded myself, rubbing the spot on my left hand where my wedding ring had once resided. Not that I was upset it was over, but I missed the companionship and the sense of belonging. I had since been trying to fill that void with a stream of mindless sex and one night stands. So waking up in a strange apartment wasn’t that uncommon. Not remembering how the fuck I had gotten there, or who I had fucked for that matter, was. 

The nook was recessed into the space and had the same white wainscoting on the U shaped bench as did the rest of the kitchen. The seat cushions where in the navy brocade and pale yellow, pink and lilac back pillows mirrored the wildflowers arranged into a white tin jug centered on the narrow but long dark wood and Iron table. The nook was flanked on all three sides by large white grille windows that overlooked central park and bathed the space in glorious sunshine. 

Equally stunning, the two young ladies sitting having coffee, who were now looking at me with a smirk that made me feel welcome and caught all at once. Are they who I’d come home with last night? Not that I’d mind, they were gorgeous. But they weren’t exactly my type. Lately, I’d been going more for the tall, dark and handsome variety. Specifically the ones that begged me to bury myself in their ass while I stroked their cock and told them how beautiful they looked taking it, but I digress.

There was a dichotomy in the way the women contrasted each other and yet there was a perceptible magnetism that seemed to draw even myself, in. One was blond and tanned with golden skin that shimmered in the morning sun. She had hazel eyes and full defined lips that suited the roundness of her face. Her features were strong; she had a prominent dark brow and a wide nose. Yet there was a softness to the way she smiled at her counterpart, in the way she caressed her shoulder after pulling up the wide neck of her sweater which had slipped down to reveal the beginning of a pink areola. This made the other one blush sweetly before she tilted her head down to rub her cheek against the back of the blonds hand.

The one that had blushed was fair skinned with long dark unruly hair that complemented light green eyes and a heart shaped face. Her mouth was small but with lush bright pink lips that she licked and nibbled frequently, the bottom one looking permanently swollen from the abuse. She looked soft; everywhere. But there was a fierceness in her eyes that told me she was the one you had to watch for. They both looked to be in their early to mid twenties.

"Coffee?" The blond asked, not waiting for an answer before she delicately removed the other one's feet from her lap and got up to get me a cup.

"Armie, come sit next to me." the brunette said, patting the spot next to her where her friend… girlfriend?... had been sitting. "How did you sleep?"

It was familiar the way she had called me over; like the faintness of a memory that I couldn't pull up, a nagging of the brain similar to having a word on the tip of your tongue but not being able to find it. I did as she asked because I didn't know what else to do without seeming rude, scooting around the bend and sitting on the back bench facing into the kitchen. 

"Do you have a headache?" she asked almost in a singsong that had less to do with tone and more with the melodiousness of her voice, placing warm fingers that had previously been cradling a steaming cup against my forehead and then flipping her hand to place the back of it against my check. "You look tired." 

"Charlotte," the other one interjected, her voice deep and warm with just the hint of a british accent. It was a warning. A gentle one; but a warning nonetheless. "Give the man a minute to wake up." 

Before I could answer Charlotte, the blond pushed a large mug in front of me and filled it with rich dark liquid from a metal carafe. Without asking if I took cream in my coffee she took a small pitcher and poured a drizzle of it into my cup. No sugar. If that wasn’t exactly how I took my coffee I might have been offended but instead I said thank you. Because it was in fact exactly how I took my coffee but also because I recognized the authority in the action and it impressed me. She was young to be so aware of her influence and the responsibility that came with it.

Once she refilled both their cups the blond sat down next to me and gladly received Charlotte's feet back on her lap; Charlotte apparently not caring that to do so she had to rest the back of her knees over mine. The blond’s hand resumed the caressing of Charlotte’s shins and she returned her attention to the newspaper she had been reading when I’d walked in.

I took a sip of the coffee as my mind began racing through escape scenarios. I’d successfully (stupidly) boxed myself in between them with no way to just slip away unobserved. Go me! 

I could feel Charlotte staring at me and my heart began to race. She made me nervous somehow. I turned my face a few centimeters in her direction avoiding direct eye contact but trying to get a glimpse of her peripherally. She had her cup held up to her mouth with both hands, pressing it to her bottom lip while she toys the rim with the pointed tip of her tongue. There was nothing salacious about it though and I relaxed. She seemed… curious. Intrigued by my presence. When she noticed I was side eyeing her she scrunched her nose and grinned. She looked young suddenly and I realized she was the girl in the pictures I had walked by earlier. I smiled back but returned my attention to my own cup.

I’d finally decided to just say I had to get going and thank them for… for what exactly? Ok so nevermind thanking them. I was just going to say I really needed to go and ask where I could find my missing belongings when he walked in and suddenly I couldn't breathe.

“I’m back.” I heard him say before I saw him and when I did, my jaw dropped. “Oh, you’re up. Good.” he said casually, as though it was normal I’d be sitting in this breakfast nook with these ladies drinking my morning coffee. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. If he was the one I'd come home with, I'd definitely remember THAT. Wouldn't I?

He dropped a brown grocery bag on the table and with one knee on the bench he leveraged his weight on the window sill and the table to stretch his entire length toward Charlotte so he could kiss her temple. My mouth watered immediately at the sight of creamy white skin over sharp hip bones peaking out from low waisted joggers and a long sleeved t-shirt that raised when he stretched.

“Bon matin.” he said to her and the fact that he spoke french went straight to my crotch. Charlotte smiled and leaned into the kiss, answering back with the same words but in english. “Good morning.”

“Are you hungry?” he asked me, us, after he had stood back up, starting to unpack the food he had brought. Croissants, compound butter, wild berry jam, creme fresh. 

I knew I was staring but I couldn’t help it. He couldn’t be older than the girls. Early to mid twenties at most but he was tall. Granted not as tall as me but at least 5’11” if not 6 feet. I immediately wanted to stand next to him to compare our heights; I wanted to know where his chin, his lips, his hips would line up in comparison to mine. He was thin, but the span of his chest didn’t seem frail or gaunt. He was lith. Graceful.

“Did you get me a chocolatine?” Charlotte asked eagerly and then ‘mmm’ed enthusiastically when he pulled a flaky pastry from the bag and handed it to her before pinching her cheek softly, a caress more than tweak of her skin.

The gesture was loving, fond. Paternal even, which made no sense because again, they had to be of similar age. They did look alike, I realized. Was there a fraternal connection maybe? They had the same chestnut hair, his much shorter and shinier than hers but with the same unruly out of control curls that framed perfect pale skin; his paler even, making the freckles that speckled his perfectly symmetrical grecian nose and high cheekbones look even more prominent. Their eyes were both green but his looked like liquid gloden waved through his irises as he moved. Similarly their faces were both heart shaped but his jaw was sharp angled and strong yet fine boned. They had the same mouth though his was wider, the lips pinker, plumper… wetter. She was beautiful, he was… exquisite. Resplendent. Luminous. 

“Did you sleep ok?” he asked me, smiling softly. He looked shy and the beauty of it sent shockwaves directly to my cock again. I nodded, because I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t know where I was or how I had gotten here but at that moment I didn’t really care. Noticing I was the only one without a pastry in my hand he added: “Do you not like croissants? I can make you something else.” 

“I think he’s eating with his eyes right now.” Charlotte teased and immediately my face was on fire. 

“Charlie!” He admonished, almost as horrified as I was.

“Sorry Poppie.” she apologized contritely and he visibly melted. She had him wrapped around her little finger that was clear, whatever their relationship.

“I have a name Charlie, I wish you would use it.” he sighed. I’m sure he meant it to sound stern but there was nothing but tenderness in his tone.

“I have never called you Timothee or Timmy in my life.” Charlotte - Charlie - asserted. “I’m not gonna start now. You’re my Poppie and that’s what I’m going to call you.”

Poppie was an odd nickname I thought but I didn’t linger on it, too busy committing his name to memory. Timothee. Timmy. Timothée, I tried with a french accent.

“Poppie is gonna be weird when you’re forty.” he pointed out and she shrugged.

“It’s weird now.” the blond one teased, dragging a sharp black painted nail on the underside of Charlie’s foot. 

“Flo, stop.” she yelped, giggling effervescently, jerking her feet off of the blond’s lap and plopping them onto mine. Flo must be short for Florence I thought.

“Here, sit!” Flo offered Timmy, getting up now that her lap was free of Charlie’s feet. “I need more coffee.”

Timmy took her place next to me and grabbed a croissant from the paper bag before stretching in front of me to get the butter from where Charlie had left it. I felt as though I was living an out of body experience. They all seemed so comfortable with each other, with me for that matter, and I had no idea who any of them were. 

Timmy must have sensed my discomfort because he placed a hand on my knee and asked if I was ok. The touch sent electricity up my leg and my stomach tightened. I swallowed hard on the saliva that was pooling in my mouth at the sight of him biting his bottom lip and shifted in my seat to try and move Charlie’s feet inconspicuously. Unfortunately it had the opposite effect and her ankle pressed firmly against my growing erection. This got her attention. She moved her foot to get a better feel and giggled again, hiding her face in her coffee mug.

I looked down at my crotch, perplexed. I wanted her to stop. Not because it didn’t feel good but because he was there, Timmy, and I didn’t want him to think… Well I don’t know what I didn’t want him to think but I didn’t want him to think it. He followed my eyes and immediately his face hardened.

“Charlie!!!” He reprimanded, his tone mirroring his expression.

“What?” she asked with feigned innocence and Timmy looked defeated immediately. It was obvious when it came to Charlie, he found it difficult to stay mad.

“It’s very daring of you to do that in front of Flo.” He pointed out, taking a different approach and for a moment Charlie froze, both our eyes darting in Flo’s direction. She didn’t seem bothered so Charlie shrugged.

"My girlfriend doesn't care. In fact my girlfriend likes it.” She emphasised the word girlfriend for my benefit. It was a game now. She was trying to get a rise out of him by getting a rise out of me. There was no malice in this. She was having fun. And under normal circumstances, like if I knew what the fuck was going on and where the fuck I was, I’d have enjoyed it a little more. “Flo likes to watch. And then she likes to punish me for my indiscretions. See?” she said, pulling at her oversized sweater to bare a shoulder with a prominent bite mark on it. "Which is what I like." 

It was getting to be a lot. Timmy’s hand on my knee, Charlie’s foot on my dick, the visual of Flo sinking her teeth into Charlie’s shoulder, Timmy’s hand squeezing in frustration or embarrassment or lust… whatever. It was getting to be a lot.

“Enough, Charlie.” Flo stated from the kitchen island. She hadn’t raised her voice. She hadn’t even looked up from the apple she was slicing. But it was an order that steeled Charlie immediately. 

She pulled her feet from my thighs and reflexively her hands came to rest on her knees and her eyes were downcast. I’d be impressed if I wasn’t so conscious of Timmy’s hand having moved higher up my thigh, patting it gently as though he was trying to apologize for whatever was happening.

Charlie chanced a look up at Timmy and her eyes flashed dark for a moment. He was biting his lips to contain a chuckle and she saw him. Not ready to concede, Charlie glanced at Flo to make sure she was still busy with her apple and then bent over me, her forearms pressed into my thighs as though she was stretching across me to tell Timmy a secret.

“He’s really really BIG by the way.” she said quietly but loud enough for me to hear and again my face flushed hot. The way she had emphasised the word big made it sound even dirtier, more lascivious.

"Oh my god.” Timmy practically hollered, embarrassed, pushing her off me and she fell back on the bench in a fit giggles. “Flo, PLEASE! Get her out of here." he begged, eyes closed, head shaking in a narrow side to side making his curls bounce around his face.  
  
"Come here you." Flo said a few seconds later, pulling Charlie from the booth with a firm hold around her wrist. 

“I just meant that he’s super tall.” she protested loudly through more giggles, sounding both excited and apprehensive at that same time.

“Go!” Flo ordered, the softness in her voice gone. She pointed toward the exit with an extended arm and Charlie lowered her eyes to the floor as she passed in front of her, but was unable to contain a smirk.

“Bye Armie it was nice to meet you.” Charlie said before they disappeared into the hallway and I breathed a sigh of relief.

"You’re in so much trouble, missy!" I heard Flo say at a distance, her voice almost a growl as Charlie giggled again. Then there was a loud clack that resonated all the way to the kitchen, the familiar sound of a bare hand colliding sharply - really sharply by the sound of it - on bare skin and Charlie wasn’t giggling anymore. 

I felt my cock twitch in my pants and I had to readjust. Did I wake up in some dystopian universe? Not that I’d mind this particular universe if I could remember how the fuck I got here. Maybe now that I was alone with Timothée I’d be able to get some answers.

“I’m sorry she’s…” Timmy began, looking almost mortified by the scene that had just taken place and somehow that made him even more beautiful.

“She’s cute.” I interjected before he could say anything derogatory about her, not wanting him to feel bad about it later. “I like her.”

“Well that makes one of us right now.” he chuckled, awkward and a little breathless. “Are you sure I can’t get you something else to eat?” 

I stopped myself from replying something tasteless like ‘can I eat you?’ or ‘are you on the menu?’ because that would be creepy and we were both embarrassed enough as it was. Instead I simply said no thank you and smiled. But I couldn't help but visualize him sprawled out on the table in front of me with his joggers around his ankles and his white shirt pushed up under his arms while I made breakfast out of biting his belly, licking his hips and sucking on the inside of his thighs…

"Do you remember anything from last night?” he asked me, which snapped me out of my reverie. Because... thank god. As much as I liked the visual of him moaning under me, I really needed to figure out why I was here.

I hesitated for a moment before answering, stopped by a fleeting worry that I’d maybe upset him if we had spent the night together and I didn’t recall but my circumstances being what they were, I shook my head no. He smiled sweetly then, no sign of being bothered by my lack of recollection. 

“I can show you if you want.” he offered and the way he phrased it took me aback. Show me? It sounded somewhat ominous but I said OK anyway. Because I was desperate to know but also because to be fair, he could have asked me to follow him into a dark basement and I’d go willingly if it meant I could hold his hand as he led the way.

There was a moment of excitement when he placed his hand over mine on the table, his cool palm applying no pressure, simply resting lighting over the back of mine and then suddenly I was in a club. In my body but not. Aware but just a bystander; there to observe not participate. It was as though I was sharing the headspace with another version of me. The me from last night. He was in control, I could only experience.

There were strobe lights flashing, people everywhere, drinks were flowing and it felt electric. Dry-ice smoke swirled around the lit-up dance floor, licking through the tangled limbs of sweaty pressed together party goers in an array of blues, acid greens, hot pinks and gold. I wasn’t sure what the theme of the party was supposed to be. It was reminiscent of a New Orleans speakeasy on halloween. Dark and seedy but charged with sensuality and desire. 

There was a stage and the crowd had gathered to watch the show. An MC introduced the upcoming act. Flossie Rose and the Wolves. People clammered when five band members - all tall, dark, big dudes with beards that looked like you wouldn’t want to mess with them - took to the stage and began playing the intro to the first song. I liked it. It was catchy. Kind of hard rock with a strong beat and tight guitar riffs that played off of the rhythmic bass. After the first bar the singer appeared. Petite in height, round faces and blond, dressed in a black and white polka dress and red high heels. 

I was far enough away that I wished last-night-me would squint so I could see better but clearly he hadn't been too interested; meanwhile, interloper-me was certain that was Flo. She looked like she was a snack for the men behind her and yet she had complete commande of the stage. She walked to the mic stand and after a final 8 count she began to sing. The crowd erupted. Clearly people were familiar with this song. I wasn’t. Despite this, I was mesmerized by her voice. Low and gravelly, sexy in a raspy way but still feminine and beguiling. 

She played to the audience perfectly, undulating her hips and using the mic stand as a dance partner as she sang. I couldn’t see properly because yesterday-me was busy looking at someone at the end of the bar and the stage was only visible in his periphery.

“Everytime I look inside your eyes,” Flo sultered into the microphone, clearly focused on someone in the front row. “You make me wanna die.” 

I tried to watch the show, clearly more interested now that I knew who the lead singer was but I couldn't focus on it. It became blurry and the sound began to drown out. Soon I couldn't see anymore, my line of sight forced me to follow the trajectory of what I had been looking at the night before. 

I was approached by two rather handsome men. They looked alike; twins almost. And I would be lying if I said I was beyond that fantasy, so I was immediately interested. They looked to be roughly my age. Maybe a little younger. Late twenties or something like that. They were average height but lean and pretty with dirty blond hipster haircuts and piercing blue eyes. They sounded eastern european when they spoke and they were quick with praise of my height and my build and my old hollywood good looks and I was feeling pretty good about myself. 

When they offered to buy me a drink I accepted, pretty confident I was going home with at least one of them. Probably both given that they seemed glued to the hip, even while attracting the bartender's attention to order our rounds.

“I wouldn’t drink whatever they give you.” I heard a familiar voice say to me and my heart stop. Now-me’s heart. Yesterday-me had no idea who this was and just shrugged, not bothering to look at the person who had spoken to him. 

‘Turn around jackass.’ I yelled at myself. But I didn’t. I kept staring into the crowd. Almost as though I was making a point of ignoring him.

“Suit yourself.” he had said with a sigh and stupid-me only turned in his direction in time for me to watch him walk away. Even from behind he was stunning. Tall and lean, curls no longer wild, perfectly coiffed and shiny in the twirling overhead lighting. He was wearing skinny black jeans that sat on his hips and framed him perfectly. The span of his shoulders was well defined in a perfectly tailored suit jacket that looked to be… what was that? Burgundy velvet? The sass on this kid. 

We watched as he disappeared into the crowd and then the pretty boys were back with my drink. I mean, they were hot, sure! And there were two of them, granted. But if I had bothered to not be rude and turned around, there’s no way I would have passed up the opportunity to spend time with Timmy even if there had been the promise of a threesome in my future. But he was gone and I was now busy flirting with Sven and Svi or whatever their names were.

I’m not sure when it started, clearly between the time I had downed my scotch as though it was a shooter and the time Thing One was sucking on my ear and Thing Two was pretty much humping my thigh with his mouth on my neck, but eventually I realized I was alone inside myself. The me from yesterday was gone. Not gone per se, asleep might be a better way of explaining it. But like, asleep in another room. My body was still responsive however and I was being escorted out of the club through a back door that led into an alley. It was dark and damp outside and I felt the chill on my skin. I was pushed roughly against a brick wall and I slumped down to the floor, the jagged surface of the brick scratching my back and I landed with my ass in a puddle. 

It was an odd feeling being there, but not. Not being able to make my body respond but being conscious of sensation and sounds. I felt uneasy. As though I were watching a horror movie, anticipating the next jump scare that was unpredictable but inevitable. Sven and Svi were looking around to make sure there were no witnesses apparently. Whispering to each other as they side eyed me. I thought they were going to rob me. After all, I had woken up unharmed in Timmy’s apartment so they hadn’t assaulted me, I thought. I was wrong.

Suddenly I was lifted off the ground by Sven as though I weighed nothing. There was a flash of white as he bared his teeth and then pain when he sank overly long and sharp canines into my neck. More pain when Svi did the same on my wrist. Pain that my body didn’t react to and yet the pain receptors in my brain were firing off like it was the fourth of july in there. I felt a chunk of flesh being ripped off my neck as though someone was ripping a piece of chicken off a drumstick and I saw stars momentarily. I could feel my body draining and I wanted out. I wanted yesterday-me to disappear and I wanted to be me-me again. I was in pain and panicked and confused and… dying. 

Then the pain stopped. I was no longer being held off the ground by an unnaturally strong Sven, I was being cradled by soft warm arms that brushed dirt from my face and rocked me like a child, telling me it was going to be alright. My eyes fluttered open and I realized it was Charlie. I couldn’t see what was going on in the alley but the sounds were terrifying. Screeching and growling and if I went by what I had learned by watching horror movies, bodies being ripped apart. 

Charlie and I received a spatter of warm liquid that made her flinch and I realized it as blood. Why wasn’t she freaking out. She should be freaking out. Yet she was looking down at me with kindness in her eyes and slight worry in her brow. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I could feel yesterday-me drifting which was incredibly confusing because me-me was fully alerte. I was suddenly very scared of being stuck in this body and I was beginning to panic. 

Eventually the commotion ended and I heard the euphonic sound of Charlie’s voice and I latched on to it as thought it was a life raft.

“Are you ok?” she was asking someone that wasn’t me. There was a relieved chuckle in her tone as she did so. Her question was rhetorical. It was something you asked someone who had just gone through something unexpected and yet was fine. Like stumbling down a flight of stairs or missing a curb and landing on your feet. I didn’t hear the answer but she seemed satisfied and continued. “Poppie, he’s bleeding over here, he’s hurt pretty badly. I don’t think it’s life threatening but I don’t think you want to wait till an ambulance gets here given the mess.”

So Timmy was there too, I thought. I wanted to look at him but I couldn't open my eyes. I felt hands moving me around, lifting up my arm and turning my head from side to side, cool thin fingers holding my chin and then there was a sigh. Timmy had hesitated for a moment; I could tell by the heaviness of it. It was as though he were conceding only because he felt as though he had no other option. This bothered me a little but I wouldn't be able to explain why. I felt my body start to feel heavy, or weightless. I wasn't sure. It just felt as though it was quickly becoming not my own.

“Where’s Flo?” he asked to which Charlie replied that she was getting the car. There was another sigh and then I felt sharp taps on my cheek. “Hey. Can you open your eyes? I need you to open your eyes for me.”

‘Open your eyes, open, open, open,’ I begged my unconscious self and eventually I felt him stir. Yesterday-me wasn’t awake and conscious, it’s like I was sleepwalking. But that was better than nothing because I could at least respond. My eyes fluttered open and we saw him. Yesterday-me was confused. Me-me was… shocked? His previously perfectly styled hair was a mess, he had a huge gash on his forehead and he was covered in blood. Much more blood than could have come from his own injury. He didn’t seem to notice that he was hurt. In fact the wound wasn’t even bleeding anymore. Given the size of it I assumed it should have been.

“Are you with me? Squeeze my hand if you're with me.” he said, his voice urgent but soft. Yesterday-me squeezed. Thank god. “I’m gonna need you to swallow, can you do that for me?” I didn’t respond. “Fuck!” he said and then it happened. 

His eyes flashed red and then turned golden, the same golden hue I had noticed earlier except now his entire iris was that color, the green a faint ring on the outside only. His cheekbones seemed to ripple as did his jaw until they appeared sharper and when he curled his upper lip, I saw his already fairly sharp looking canines lengthen. 

‘WHAT THE FUCK.’ I screamed though of course nobody heard me. I felt the urge to recoil but obviously couldn’t because I wasn’t in control of my body. Was I even really in my body? I watched as he brought his wrist to his mouth and bit into it, probably nicking an artery because blood began to gush out and immediately he brought it to my lips. I felt it flood my tongue, slightly salty and metallic but sweeter than I had anticipated. It felt like honey in my mouth and I began to choke as it dripped down my throat.

“Hey. You have to swallow.” he coaxed and I felt his fingers massage my throat to help it go down.

What the fuck was happening? I could no longer stop the panic from inundating me. I wanted to claw my way out of this body if necessary. Anything to get away from there, from him, for the taste of his blood in mouth. Because it was terrifying but also because I knew without a doubt I would now crave it for the rest of my life and that was beyond terrifying. My system was already addicted to it. I felt it in the way it made me want to beg for it. My tongue wanted more and this despite there still being some in my mouth. I desired it and it repulsed me simultaneously. 

Out. I needed out. My brain was pounding on an invisible door and I was begging to be brought back, released from this corporal prison that was mine but not.

“You’re ok. I’ve got you.” I heard him say and suddenly I was back. There was no other way to describe it. The alley had disappeared, the sunlight streaming in from the windows in the breakfast nook was hurting my eyes. I no longer felt paralysed though I still felt weak. And the arms around me were no longer Charlie’s but Timmy’s. As though controlled by a spring in a jack-in-a-box crank up toy, my fight or flight response kicked in and I shoved him off of me and shrunk back into the corner at the same time. 

I peered at him through narrowed eyes, out of breath from fear rather an exertion, nails digging into my palms as I fisted my hands, knuckles practically gray they were so white. The gash on his forehead was gone I noticed, and I immediately raised a hand to my neck to feel for the missing chunk of flesh Sven or Svi had ripped from me. There was nothing there. No gaping wound, no crusted scab, not even the faintest hint of a mark. 

He moved a hand in my direction and I jumped, pressing into the corner of the booth even further. This seemed to dishearten him. He sighed and his shoulders dropped as he did so, eyes lowering to the floor. I watched him as he folded long legs into the lotus position on the bench and lowered his hands to his thighs, palms facing up. He kept his eyes on the floor and I could tell he was chewing on this inside on his cheek. He waited. If I wasn’t petrified that he could rip me to shreds if he wanted too I would have sworn he was showing submission. 

After long minutes had ticked by, my breathing began to regulate and I didn’t feel quite so ready to bolt out of my skin. Timmy hadn’t moved. He hadn’t even snuck a glance in my direction. I think he was trying to show me I was in charge of this moment and it was up to me how it was going to go.

“What are you?” I found myself asking, unable to hide the disdain in my voice or on my face. But I was curious too.

“You know what I am.” he answered, looking up at me with just his eyes, his chin still pointing at his knees. He was smiling subtly, mouth closed just the corner of his lips pulling up slightly. And I did know. But what the fuck?

“You can’t be. I mean…” I wanted to say vampires aren’t real but I couldn’t even make the words come out of my mouth.

“And yet!” he validated, his smile wider now but still closed mouth and I wondered if it was because he was afraid to show me his teeth.

“Did you feed off of me?” I asked and I wasn't sure if I sounded horrified or aroused. Probably both judging by the tightening in my pants. There was something seriously wrong with me.

He laughed out loud at this and finally lifted his face to look at me straight on. His hands remained on his thighs though.

“Armie, you fed off of me, not the other way around.”

I could taste his blood again at the mention of it and my mouth watered almost to the point of drooling. It wasn’t just how it tasted; it was also how it had felt coating my tongue, going down my throat. He chuckled again, just a soft exhale through his nostrils and an up turned corner of his mouth, but he had the grace to look away for a moment so it didn't seem like he was laughing at me. It was clear by the look on his face that he knew what the mention of drinking his blood had done to me. I was immediately defensive. 

“You MADE me drink that. I didn’t have much choice in the matter.” I wanted to sound angry. I think I probably sounded wounded instead. He sighed, chest rising up and dropping hard. It was probably more of a huff, then.

“I told you not to take the drink.” he said quietly, almost as though he was talking to himself.

“Wow! So it’s my fault. Ok!” I knew I was sounding like a jilted girlfriend but I didn't care. This was 2020, victim blaming was no longer acceptable. I flinched at the word. Victim. I hated it. My anger had allowed my fear to recede and I uncurled myself from the corner. I leaned in closer - not too close - trying to look imposing to show him I was no fucking victim. “How could I have known that they were monsters?” 

The word sounded childish coming out of my mouth. But what else could I have called them. That’s what they were. I saw him balk when I said it and I felt immediate guilt. I didn’t know what else to call them though. Or him for that matter. But instinctively I knew this descriptive was inaccurate even as I thought it. Because I was here, unharmed, healed and… safe. I thought back to what Timmy had shown me from last night and realized I was still missing part of the story. 

I could infer by what I had heard and the state Timmy was in when I had finally opened my eyes, right before he fed me his blood, that Sven and Svi were no longer a threat. I was pretty sure they were no longer anything at all in fact and that in itself was scary. Because looking at Timmy, you wouldn’t imagine him to be able to dispose of anybody, nevermind two strong ass supernatural whatever they were - I still couldn't say the word vampire. Yet he obviously had. 

He hadn’t come out of it uninjured, I remembered. But he seemed perfectly perfect now. No sign of the head wound he had had the night before. And Charlie was there. Was she like him too? Was Flo? Had I found myself in the middle of an upper east side nest? I laughed. It was nervous and a little panicky. I had clearly woken up in a universe taking its inspiration from Buffy the Vampire slayer and Gossip Girl.

“I need you to fill in the blanks for me Timmy. Because right now I’m fucking confused.” I said, trying to make my voice sound steady. 

“What do you want to know?” he asked, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his thighs, hands joined together in front of him, as though he were settling in for an interesting conversation with a friend.

“Why did you feed me your blood?” I asked, my mouth watering again at the thought of it and this time, my dick got hard too. What the fuck? "And why do I fucking crave it like a God damned drug addict?" I had added, because even if it didn’t make sense, it was the only way to explain the force with which my body needed it... needed him. It wasn’t just the blood I realized. It was also him. I wanted his hands digging into my flesh; I wanted to sink between his thighs, take him in my mouth and feel him come apart around me; I wanted to pin him to this banquet with his wrists above his head so I could devour his mouth, his throat uninterrupted; I wanted to bury myself deep inside him and feel his teeth on my neck as he…

“You were injured, bleeding.” He answered and it gave me a start. I felt myself flush with embarrassment at the vividness of what I had just been imagining and I could have swore I saw him smirk but it was fleeting. “My blood healed you.”

“Why didn’t you just leave there after you healed me. Why did you bring me here?” I asked.

“You were still unconscious. Those guys drugged you, you know! So it would be easier to feed off of you. That's why I warned you about the drink. I saw them do it.” He paused for a moment, looking back down at his thighs, an angry narrowing in his brow as though he was chastising himself for not having had done more in that moment, possibly avoiding this whole fiasco. I felt the urge to reassure him, to tell him that this wasn’t his fault. But I didn’t. “My blood doesn't work on synthetic drugs. So your injuries were gone but you were still out of it. The police were already likely on their way, it would have looked suspicious for you to be lying there covered in blood but unharmed amidst dismembered body parts. And you'd have ended up here anyway so I saved you some discomfort and some steps."

"What do you mean I'd have ended up here anyway?" I wanted to know. He seemed rather matter of fact about it. Like it was a given. This annoyed me. “I don’t even know where here is. And I don’t actually remember anything from last night other than what you showed me. How could I have just ended up here?”

It seemed rather ostentatious of him to just assume I would be so drawn to him after one meeting in a crowded club that I’d want to find him again. I hadn’t even seen his face at the time. Just the back of his head and the way he looked in that velvet jacket. Not that I even remembered meeting him. It was more like the memory of something based on a photograph and not an actual recollection. So how could I possibly have shown up here.

“My blood. It binds you to me. You asked me why you felt like you were addicted to it earlier. That’s why. Your body craves it so you’ll find me. Don’t worry though, it’s not permanent. It wears off after a few days.” The way he’d answered was almost pedestrian. Like it was nothing. Like the words blood and bind phrased together weren’t cause for concern.

“I need to go.” I blurted out. Suddenly very much wanting to be away from here, from him, from whatever this new reality was. “I want to get out of here.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” he said, stretching to place a hand on my knee that I avoided by pulling them up to my chest. I was panicked again. Was he saying I couldn’t leave?

“Am I being held prisoner? Are you going to kill me if I try to leave?” I challenged and was taken aback when he laughed.

“Of course not. If I wanted you dead, I would have let those two idiots kill you in the alley. Or better yet I’d have taken you in the alley and drained you myself.” I know those last words should have scared or repulsed me, probably both. Instead they made me want to crawl over to him and beg him to bite me. He seemed to sense my ever growing arousal and this time I was certain he smirked. It was soft and kind but it was still a smirk. “You’re free to leave when you want. Like I said, though, you might find the distance... uncomfortable. Your body’s going to want to close the gap.” 

‘’I don’t know what closing the gap means but I want to leave. Now. I want to go.’’ I was out of the booth before he could try to change my mind. I stood facing the table, needing him to give me my things so I could get away from this place, from him… before I changed my mind. Before I acted on this need to ravage him; or this desire to have him wreck me in all ways imaginable. 

“I’ll get your things.” he said and if I didn’t know better I would have sworn he seemed disappointed. 

I followed him at a distance, no longer afraid but cautious in the way you are of a stray animal. My shoes and my jacket were in the front closet of a grand looking entrance hall and my keys and my cellphone were laid neatly on a big round center table with yet another wildflower bouquet at its center. These were all Charlie I thought. He did this for her, I was sure of it and for a moment I was torn between intense jealousy and a strong desire to protect her. 

“Is Charlie like you?” I asked and he smiled, guessing why I was asking.

“No, Charlie’s human. What you're feeling is because of my blood in your system. Charlie’s my great-grand-daughter, give or take a great, so we share the same blood.” 

I didn’t know what to say. ‘Good!’, ‘Ok!’, ‘Please ask me to stay!’. So I simply shrugged and put my shoes on before slipping into my jacket. There was a red spot on the right sleeve that had been missed when they’d cleaned my clothes, the only remnant proof of what had happened last night and I found myself staring at it.

“I can buy you a new jacket.” he offered but I declined.

“No thank you. I have others. I’ll just throw this one away when I get home.” I’ll probably burn it all, my clothes included, I thought. He shrugged.

“I’ll call the doorman while you’re on your way down. He’ll hail you a cab.” he said, opening the door and standing aside so I could see into the hallway. 

I walked passed him, unable to control the way I pressed myself against the door to avoid touching him and if he noticed he didn’t acknowledge it. I stepped into the hallway, almost expecting him to grab me and pull me inside, as though he had never really intended to allow me to leave in the first place. Again, that thought should terrify me, instead I found myself bracing for the feel of his arms around my chest and I was almost disappointed when he didn’t. 

“Aren’t you afraid I will tell people about you?” I asked him and he shrugged again, pushing his hands into his pockets.

“Who would believe you?” he asked, mouth stretched into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He looked… sad. He was right of course. I had no intention of telling anybody about what had happened to me and where I had been for exactly that reason. “The effects of the blood bond are strongest for the first 48 to 72 hours and they fade gradually after that. By the end of next week my blood should be out of your system completely. If you change your mind and would rather ride it out here with us, you know where to find me.”

“I won’t.” I said and he nodded once in acknowledgement. “Well, thank you. For saving me.” 

“It was my pleasure. Maybe think about not accepting drinks bought for you by strange men in bars if I’m not around in the future.” It was an attempt at a joke but I didn’t laugh. 

‘I would for sure not do that anymore,’ I thought and turned to make my way toward the elevator at the end of the hall. I heard the door of Timmy’s apartment close and immediately my stomach turned. Fighting the urge to turn on my heels, I kept walking. ‘Hell, I’d probably never go to a club again.’


	2. Everything looks better when the sun goes down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Armie tries desperately to wait out the effects of the blood bind as far away from Timmy as he can. Clearly, it's a struggle.

[ ](https://ibb.co/68PKMYt)

Timmy wasn’t kidding. I wasn’t exactly in pain. It wasn’t even full fledged discomfort; but I was uncomfortable. From the moment I set foot in the elevator and the doors closed, I felt a pulling in my belly, a tightening in my chest… a pressure that didn’t make it hard to breath but made it just difficult enough that I was conscious of it. My skin burned; the type of burning you get from the cold not the heat. I didn’t care. This was too much. This wasn’t real. It couldn't be real. ‘Mind over matter’ I told myself as the elevator descended at rapide speed, my gut lurching upward more forcefully than it normally would. ‘This isn’t real.’ 

“And yet!” I heard Timmy say, as though he were standing right next to me and I jumped, startled. Then upon realizing he wasn’t there, that it was simply my mind playing tricks on me, I almost cried. I had to hold back a sob at the loss I felt. 

“Fuck you!” I said out loud, the words bouncing off the mirrors around me. It made me feel better to be angry. Because anger didn’t hurt. Anger made sense. Even if being angry at him didn’t. 

A cab was waiting when I reached the lobby. The doorman held the door open for me and I almost lunged into the chassis, not bothering to thank him, pulling the door closed before he could push it shut. I gave the driver my address and leaned back into the seat, not bothering to buckle my seat belt. I had survived death already in the past 24hrs. I wasn’t likely to die in the next 24. Life wasn’t that cruel. 

I had almost expected the discomfort to increase the further away from the Upper East Side we drove but it didn’t and I was relieved. I could deal with this. I could handle this for the two or three days it would take for his blood to leave my system. And then I could pretend like none of this had happened. Like it was just a dream my drunken brain had conjured up to scare me off of the one night stand parade I had been indulging in for too long. 

I was exhausted despite having only been awake a few hours. I leaned my head against the headrest and closed my eyes. I felt myself drifting and I didn’t fight it. With traffic I had time for a catnap. 

His fingers were dry and cool against my skin. They felt soft as the ball of his palm rested against my cheek while his thumb massaged just above the spot between my eyes, pressing soft circles into my bone and I moaned as tension began to leave my body. I leaned into his touch when he caressed the pad of his thumb over my eyebrow and then back toward the bridge of my nose. I sighed when he lifted his hand from my face so he could trace the line of my nose with his middle finger, continuing down to my cupid's bow, over my lips, my chin and all the way down my neck until his hand was flat against my chest, long narrow finger grazing through my chest hair soothingly.

“Armie, we’re here.” I heard him say and I was startled awake. I was alone. And the uncomfortable feeling was back. The longing too. I felt as though I had been ripped from his arms and it hurt. The driver was looking at me like I was crazy. Had I moaned out loud? If the bulge in my pants were any indication, I must have. Embarrassing.

My apartment felt empty when I closed the door behind myself. It’s open space living room and kitchen area felt cold and it felt dark. I missed the sunlight streaming in from the windows in the breakfast nook at Timmy’s. I missed it as though I had spent many mornings there in a different life. I missed the warmth from the sun through the glass, the way the rays had lit up his face, making his skin look like he was glowing from within. I needed to get a grip. I puttered around, wondering what I could do to keep myself busy; anything to keep my mind off of him. 

My stomach growled. I hadn’t eaten at Timmy’s, too concerned with trying to figure out how I had ended up there. I decided to make myself a Sunday breakfast, even if it was only Saturday. That would keep me busy for a while and I had nowhere to be. In fact I had nowhere to be for a long time. I hadn’t booked another play after the one that had just ended, telling myself I would take some well deserved time off and maybe explore my options on the west coast for a while. I had spent the last three years doing eight shows a week on two different runs and I was starting to feel it in my bones. I needed a break.  
  
I was frying a few slices of bacon, absentmindedly watching CNN on the TV in the living room when his arms wrapped around my waist and his cheek pressed between my shoulders. I hummed contentedly and leaned my head back so I could feel the top of his his with the back of mine.

“That smells good.” he said and lifted on his tiptoes so he could kiss the nap of my neck, pushing my head back up to gain access and I laughed. “You smell good too,” he continued, lips moving to the side of my neck now, hands sliding under the front of my shirt, cool fingers tickling my belly just above the waist of my pants. “Maybe I should eat you!” he teased, teeth grazing the back of my ear and I should have been scared but I wasn’t. I wanted nothing more than to feel his teeth sink into my sink right now. My cock wanted it even more. I took one of his hands and guided it to my waist band, placing his fingers over the button and the zipper, pressing my erection into his palm so my intent was clear. “So hot.” he whispered in my ear and it raised thousands of little goosebumps all over my flesh. He chuckled when I nodded eagerly, meaning that he was hot too but I couldn’t speak. His hands working their way into my boxers had rendered me speechless. “Armie, it’s burning.” he said as cool fingers wrapped around my length and I gasped, thinking ‘burning for you’ just in time for the smoke detector to start screeching.

“FUCK!” I hollered, snapping out of my… whatever the fuck that was and flung the pan into the sink, turning the tap on to stop it from smoking. Once I was certain nothing was going to catch fire I scurried over to the screeching appliance in the hallway and waved a dish towel at it frantically to silence it. 

“FUCK YOUUUUU!” I screamed at Tim again, even if he wasn’t here. “What the fuck are you doing to me?” The question was rhetorical because I knew what was happening. He had warned me. It was my body rebelling against the distance. It was my mind begging for him… yearning for me to go back there. 

I ended up eating a bowl of cereal and plopping down in front of the TV, hoping the series I’d put on would distract me from the feeling that my insides were being stretched and twisted. I had lost my pants between the kitchen and the living room, knowing I would eventually end up jerking off, if only to get rid of the tension that had built since I’d woken up in his bed. 

Had that even been his bed? I wanted it to be. I wanted the smell of the sheets I had woken in to be impregnated with his scent because then they had smelled… divine. I don’t use that word lightly FYI. It was a mix of lavender and fresh herbs and… sex.

I began to see him everywhere. Every time I mind drifted, or even if I was just mildly distracted, he was there. Touching me. Kissing my neck, my shoulder. Running his fingers through my hair or down my arm; lacing his fingers with mine. And in those moments, the tightening in my stomach and the feeling that my gut was trying to crawl away from my insides, stopped. I could breathe easier. Inevitably something snapped me out of it. My phone ringing or a car horn down in the street. And the longing would come back. The gnawing in my insides.

“You’re not real,” I said matter of fact when Timmy crawled between my spread thighs as I sat on the couch, head thrown back, trying to breathe my way through a particularly uncomfortable spasm in my gut, sighing with relief as the touch of his hands on my hips made the discomfort disappear.

“I can be.” he said before kissing a trail from my knee to the crease between my groin and my thigh. 

My hand was in my boxers and I was stroking myself slowly, my free hand tangling itself in his loose curls to keep him there, his face close enough to take me in his mouth if I wanted him too but I didn’t. Not yet, anyway. I pushed my boxers down to reveal my erection and he smiled, licked his lips. I wanted him to watch me touch myself and then I wanted to come on his face. I wanted to see my come drip down cheeks and his chin, giving him a taste of his own medicine. I wanted to make him want but not be allowed to touch. 

“You are allowed to touch though, Armie. You just have to come back.” he said, breath hot on my balls, on the underneath of my shaft. 

“Shut up.” I told him more forcefully than I had intended and for some reason this made him giggle; his pink little tongue, wet and teasing, peeking through his teeth when he smiled.

“I wanna taste you. I let you taste me. It’s only fair.” he was baiting me. His tongue was now resting flat on his bottom lip, mouth open just wide enough to be salacious. I felt a sudden urge to defile him, to make him sticky and filthy with my come just so I could clean him with my tongue after. God he was beautiful and I wanted to wreck him. “Come for me, Armie.” he said, bedroom eyes glistening golden and alluring as I moved my hand in a furious up and down stroke. And I wanted to. I tried. But no matter how close I thought I was I just couldn’t cross the finish line. My wrist was starting to hurt and my arm was tired. “Please come for me.” he begged and I wanted to shove my cock down his throat just to shut him up because I was frustrated that I couldn't reach orgasm. I swear, he opened his mouth wider in anticipation. Before I could pull him onto my erection there was a knock on the door that made me jump out of my skin and he was gone. 

“For fuck’s sake.” I almost cried, banging my head hard on the back of the couch. Now on top of the pulling and tightening of my organs, my head hurt and my cock felt chaffed and throbbed painfully. I tucked myself back in my boxers and answered the door. 

“Delivery for Mr. Hammer.” a young bike messenger stated, holding a Dior gift bag up toward me. If he noticed my disheveled appearance or my half-naked-still-hard state, he didn’t let it show.

“That’s me. Do I need to sign for it?” I asked and he shook his head, handing me the parcel and heading off immediately.

I knew what I was before I even opened the bag. I sighed heavily as I pulled out a brand new dinner jacket to replace the one I had worn the night before which now sported a small blood stain. He had purchased a new one for me despite my having told him not too. And how the fuck did he even know where i lived?

There was a note in the bag.

_Dear Armie,_  
_I contacted your agency and asked them to have this delivered to you. I hope it is to your liking. Please accept this as well as my apology for last night. Yours, T._

The jacket was stunning. It was made of dark bluish grey wool jacquard cut in a vintage narrowed waist style and adorned with deep blue, almost black, velvet cuffs, pocket flaps and lapels. I glided my fingers over the fabrics and wondered if he had picked it out himself or if he had simply called the store and asked them to find something in my size. I wanted to be annoyed with him. To throw the jacket unceremoniously in the bag and send it back, hopefully wrinkled. But I didn’t. Instead I slipped my arms through it, the cupro lining sliding softly over bare skin. Of course it fit perfectly. I walked to the decorative full length mirror that leaned against the wall in the living room and admired my reflection. 

His hands brushed the fabric smoothly over my shoulders and then down my arms. He was standing behind me so all I could see was the top of his messy curls and his hands flitting over my arms, making a pit stop to squeeze at my biceps delicately, before long thin beautiful fingers made their way under my arms and across my chest to finally come and slip into the front pockets, the pale creaminess of his skin contrasting beautifully against the dark jacquard. 

“I knew it would be beautiful on you.” he said and I could feel the warmth of his breath on my back despite the thickness of the fabric. “You should always wear it without a shirt under.” he was teasing but I liked it. I slipped my hands over his inside the pockets and laced our fingers, my palms over the top of his. 

“I love your hands.” I said, allowing myself to be lulled comfortably in the fantasy, ignoring the buzzing in the back of mind trying to remind me this wasn’t real, that he wasn’t real. That I was in fact, going crazy. He hummed against me, nuzzling his cheek between my shoulder blades, arms tightening around my rib cage.

“You’re too far away.” he whined which made me smile. 

“A sheet of paper wouldn’t fit between our bodies right now.” I teased and he tightened his arms around me as though he were afraid I would disappear. Ironic considering he had been disappearing on me all day. I wanted to live in this moment. I wanted to feel him against me, always.

“An entire city fits between our bodies right now, Armie.” he said and the sadness in his tone snapped me out of my comfort. I felt his body being practically ripped from mine and the emptiness I felt because of it tightened my throat and pained my heart.

What was happening to me? I had known this guy less than 24 hours. A hysterical laugh got caught in my throat. My eyes were wild, looking back at me in the mirror. He wasn't a guy. He was a thing. A monster. A mythical creature that roamed the night looking for prey. Everything fairy tales and horror movies had taught me was that he was evil. Even high school history had touched on the macabre and the twisted truth in which these fables had been forged. Now that I knew these to be verity rather than allegory, shouldn’t I be frightened? Terrified even. Instead here I was lusting over him, wanting to see him bare his teeth, instantly hard at the thought of them piercing my skin, even harder at the thought of tasting my blood on his tongue.

Jesus Christ.

The swear gave me pause. Was any of lore true? Clearly burning in sunlight wasn’t. Unless he had some of those fancy UV ray blocking windows? Wait, did those even exist? What about garlic? Could he walk into a church? Could the power of Christ compel him? Ha! Ok, that was funny. Maybe I should find that cross I was given when I did my first communion all those years ago? What I had done with it? I’d probably thrown into a memory box my mother had started for me when I was a baby. This was ridiculous. I needed to get out of here. 

I decided to go for a run. I hung the jacket up in my closet - it was too beautiful to give back and my other one was ruined after all - and I changed into a pair of gray joggers and a red hoodie. I started off on my usual route which took me through Central park from my apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. I was jogging at an average pace, not exerting myself but fast enough to get my heart pumping and my muscles warmed up. 

  
After the first mile I sped up, no longer paying attention to the scenery and focusing instead on my breathing and the rhythm of my footfalls. Another mile and my mind began to drift and with it my cock filled out a little. Not now, idiot! It wasn’t even a concrete thought. Nothing like the vivid fantasies my mind had fallen into back at my apartment. It was just the idea of him really. The thought of his smell, the warmth of his breath. I tried to adjust as I kept running which should be an Olympic sport unto itself. Just saying. 

I didn’t even realize it when I took a turn out of the park and began jogging along the outside wall. To avoid a group of people I crossed the street and then turned down an avenue to get away from the crowds. I winced against the straining in my underwear that just wouldn’t go away and took off at a sprint, hoping the extra exertion would refocus my body if not my mind. I ran at full speed for a good half mile and stopped to rest with my hands on my knees, a few yards away from the corner, because my lungs were on fire and my muscles burned. I couldn’t move further. As my breathing regulated and my heart rate leveled, I was able to look around, realizing I was in the Upper East Side.

“What the fuck.” I said out loud and an elderly lady coming out of the familiar entrance to my left looked offended. I didn't bother apologizing. In fact I said it again. How the fuck did I end up back here?

“Mr. Hammer?” The doorman said and all I remember thinking was ‘fuck it’ and barreling past him. My earlier need to get away from Timmy felt absolutely absurd now. I needed to be with him. Obviously I needed to be with him. I needed to see him, touch him, smell him. My cock was fully hard now. I knew it was the proximity. He was close. I winced as I readjusted again with little care of who saw me do it. All his blood must have moved into my groin, using my erection as a compass needle. The image made me laugh. It sounded strangled and a little hysterical.

The elevator was moving at a snail's pace and I stalked the cabin from front to back and side to side until we got to Timmy’s floor. I took off at a run once I was able to get out of the elevator and stopped dead in front of his apartment door. My mouth was watering at the thought that he was just on the other side. Pavlovian conditioning probably couldn’t even cause a reaction of this intensity. 

The pulling and tightening in my stomach had been replaced by a need for him so fierce I hesitated to ring the doorbell, concerned that I might destroy him with the force of my desire once I saw him. I knew that sounded ridiculous. He was a vampire after all. He had ripped two other vampires apart to save me. One measly human probably couldn’t cause too much damage. Even an overly large one. But the idea of it hardened my cock even more and I closed my eyes, unable to contain a moan from the pleasure/pain of it.

“Armie?” Timmy called and my eyes snapped open. He was real this time. I knew it, instinctively. My body recognized him as he stood in the open doorway looking both happy and concerned. “The doorman called to say you were on your way up. Everything O…” 

He never finished that sentence.

I think the initial force of my assault lifted him off his feet and he gasped, arms wrapping around my shoulders reflexively. My mouth was already on his as I pushed him back into the huge black door of his apartment; the thud of our bodies against it, loud enough to be heard. 

I had half expected him to push me off or given the strength I knew he possessed, to at least take control of the situation, which I would have let him do willingly. Although I had a penchant for the more dominant aspects of sex in general, I would have let him do anything to me as long as he was touching me. Instead, once the initial shock of my attack had worn off, he surprised me by going all soft and liquid in my arms. I felt him surrender, lips parted, tongue waiting for mine. It was beautiful. He was beautiful. I held him against the door, both wrists pinned above his head with my left hand while my right hand pulled his pelvis into mine at his waist, palm against bare skin under his shirt, while I kept him in place with a thigh pressing up between his. I growled into his mouth when I felt him getting hard against me.

The kiss was frantic and needy but it wasn’t sloppy. As I lapped at his lips and tasted the inside of his mouth, his tongue moved with mine with the same want. When I pulled away to breathe, he whined in a show of discontent and I almost came just from the knowledge that if I wanted to, he’d let me ravage him, here and now. I buried my face in the crook of his neck and sniffed him. If it was possible to become drunk by smell, I would be getting wasted off of him.

  
His clothes smelled like fresh laundry that had been warmed by the sun, his skin smelled like the wild flowers he filled the house with and his breath was a little sweet like peaches and dessert wine. Even his hair smelled good, all the way down to the scalp; kind of green and dewy like the smell of the park early in the morning. Together it was inebriating.

He rutted against my thigh softly while I nosed the spot behind his jaw and his ear, inhaling deeply. I probably sounded like a sniffer dog but I didn’t care. I needed to have his smell permeate my insides.

“I’m glad you came back.” he said once both our heart rates had stabilized and I had released his wrists, his arms falling limp at our sides.

“I’m not sure I had much of a choice.” I answered, my forehead pressed to his. It wasn’t an accusation, it was a statement of fact. There was no way I would have made it seventy-two hours if I had stayed away. “Is your offer for me to stay here until this is over still on the table?” I asked him, honestly a little worried it might not be given how I have acted earlier that morning. 

“Oh you mean you didn’t just stop by to fuck me and be on your way?” he asked a little too disappointed for me to be convinced he wasn’t being serious. Seeing my discomfort he softened again. “I’m kidding. Of course you can stay. The girls will be happy to have you.”

“Only the girls?” I wanted to know, my thigh pressing up between his again, a little retaliation could be dangerous but given the way he was reacting with his breath hitching in his throat, I figured I’d get away with it. 

“I could be persuaded to enjoy having you around too.” he said and nipped at my bottom lip. I growled again and grabbed his wrists to pin them back up against the door but this time he didn’t let me, slipping out from under me in such a way that made it clear he had always been able to get free, he had simply been allowing me the power play.

“Come on, Cassanova,” he said, taking my hand in his, kicking the door closed and leading me through the entrance hall and into a hallway I hadn’t seen that morning. “Let’s go tell the girls they have a new roommate.”

I followed willingly, a new sensation now building in my stomach and in my chest. It felt warm and comforting. It felt like coming home. 


	3. Show me all the things that I shouldn't know (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Armie settles into his new reality and starts learning about who and what Timmy is exactly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the positive feedback. Your comments have lite up some rather gloomy days of late. xoxo

“The girls are in the library.” Timmy said, pulling me along behind him through a similarly decorated hallway to the one I had walked through earlier that morning. I would have expected the decor to be dark and gloomy, with deep colors and heavy fabrics. Maybe that was just prejudice based on my limited, Hollywood influenced, vision of _**what**_ he was; not _**who**_ he was. 

Instead everything was light and airy except for the oversized black doors that lined the corridors which mirrored the huge front door I had him pinned against just a few minutes ago. The thought of it made things stir in my belly and in my groin. 

I heard the music even before Timmy opened the door and recognized the track; Ain’t No Sunshine by Bill Withers. It was Flo singing however. I had also recognized her low sexy gravel.

My eyes scanned the space quickly. It was more a very large office than it was a library, although two of the walls were covered in floor to ceiling built in bookshelves that must have held thousands of books; a small ladder to reach the top shelves resting against a rail that spanned both walls. It was cozy in this space despite the size of it. The furniture was big and welcoming. There was a large wood burning fireplace in the corner, next to an antique intricately carved wooden desk that was littered with books and paperwork in a perfectly disorganized aesthetic mess worthy of Pinterest. The tall windows were framed with heavy silky brocade, green with colorful designs I'd have to inspect later. Even the ceiling in this room was beautiful, decorated with copper colored tin tiles with embossed relief.

Flo was sitting on the edge of an oversized plush forest green loveseat, strumming an electric guitar softly as she sang, the words sounding voluptuous as they came out, her tone rounded and chesty. She smiled when she saw me.

Timmy let go of my hand as he crossed the threshold into the library and it felt deliberate, as though he wanted me to make the conscious choice of joining them, of leaving my fears behind and embracing what the next little while would hold. This was only until the blood bind wore off, I reminded myself - not because I was hesitating but rather because I wasn't - and I followed.

Charlie was busy perusing one of the bookshelves, with her back to the room, dancing unconsciously to Flo’s melodious rendition of the classic, hips swaying provocatively in a pretty flowered dress that made her look more innocent than I knew she was. Timmy walked directly to her and effortlessly twirled her so she was facing him. As though they had been doing it for years - which they probably had, I realized - they melted into a classic closed dance position, their right hands clasped, his left hand around her waist while hers rested on his shoulder, and he pressed his cheek to her temple, whispering something in her ear while they danced, which made her look up at me and smile excitedly. My heart fluttered. I loved her immediately and the notion made me laugh uncomfortably. 

I didn’t know what it was like to have children but I assumed that this almost visceral consciousness, that I would protect her with my life if necessary, was what a father would feel for his daughter and it was overwhelming. This was silly, she was barely ten years younger than me.

It’s just the blood bind I reminded myself again but I couldn’t help but pull her tightly against me when she pirouetted out of Timmy’s arms and came to hug me. Even on her tiptoes her face didn’t reach my shoulders and I had to bend down to accommodate the height difference.

“I’m glad you came back.” she said and kissed my check before pirouetting off again to finally grab the book she had selected from the shelf and then settled on the floor at Flo’s feet. 

Hanging out with people I barely knew should have been awkward but it wasn’t. Timmy and I sat on the opposing loveseat to where Flo was composing a new song on her guitar while Charlie sat at her feet, head resting on the back of the couch as she read. Timmy had opted to resume writing in the journal he had set aside earlier - probably to come and answer the door when the doorman had called - and I picked up a photography book on New York architecture in the 20th century from the coffee table. 

Timmy and I sat close but not touching and my nervous system seemed to tingle with elation at the proximity. Or was his blood in my system bubbling with excitement at being brought back to its source? 

My eyes were drawn to the picture Flo and Charlie painted sitting in front of me, all feminine and soft curves in flowy floral dresses and loose locks. They were something Renoir would have painted. I admired the ease with which they existed with each other. They were in sync in such a way that it was beautiful to watch. Once in a while Flo would pause her strumming to note a chord progression in a book she kept close and in those moments she would always make a point of touching Charlie in some way. Either by grazing the back of her fingers against Charlie’s cheek or caressing her wild curls delicately. In turn, Charlie would tilt her head and kiss the side of Flo’s thigh or nuzzle her cheek against her knee.

They did this without waiting for acknowledgement or needing reciprocation. It would have looked almost unconscious were it not for the tenderness with which it was done and something in my chest tightened at the realization that I had never had something so… right.

I had had plenty of relationships of course, a few of them long-term even, but there had never been anyone with whom I had connected so symbiotically that it was effortless. It must be nice, I thought.

“Everything ok?” Timmy asked and I snapped out of my daze, noticing he had turned to face me at some point, knees pulled up on the couch with his shins resting against my side. I had draped my arm over his thighs. When had that happened? I nodded because I was unable to form words, the fact that he had been touching me making my cock stir. 

Suddenly I was very conscious of his presence. I was wildly aware of the weight of him against me, the smell of him in the air around me. If we had been alone I would have pulled him into my lap, held his hands behind his back and devoured his mouth so I could taste him again.

“It’s getting late,” he said, closing the journal before tucking it in between the cushion and the back of the couch so he could stretch, hands clasped high above his head, back arched over the arm of the couch in an impossible curve. He groaned. My mouth watered. There was a band of skin that was now showing as his sweater pulled up with the motion of his arms and he was even paler there than the rest of him, blue veins drawing intricate patterns under his skin. The elastic band of his underwear was peaking over the waistband of his low slung joggers and I wanted to tug at it to see how tight they were. His shins pushed against my side and his hips raised slightly off the couch as he furthered the backward arch, stretching even more and my hand slipped down his thigh, resting closer to his crotch. All I had to do was uncurl my fingers and I would be able to cup him through his pants. I didn’t even care if the girls were there. The need for him had returned in full force. It felt different though. Less of a pull and more of a push. Like there was an invisible hand nudging me toward him.

Before I had a chance to move he sat up and then even his shins were gone from my side as he sat crossed legged on the couch. He clapped his hands together and said “ok!” to no one in particular, either as a means of getting everyone's attention or simply to snap himself out of the lackadaisical lull of a lazy Saturday afternoon and he rubbed his hands together as though to warm them. I wanted to take his hands in mine and warm his fingers for him.

“Flo, are we still doing Salmon for dinner?” he asked and she nodded.

“Charlie and I just need to go to the store to pick up a few things to go with it.” she informed him, setting the guitar down on a rack on the side of the loveseat. “Are you ok with fish Armie or should we pick up something else for you?”

I shook my head. I was fine with salmon, in fact I loved salmon. I wondered what Timmy would eat though. Did he eat? I couldn’t remember if he had eaten croissants early that morning. And if he did eat, did he eat fish? A vampire eating fish seemed preposterous.

“Great.” Timmy validated and stood. “Hey can you guys stop at Armie’s to pick him up a few things. Like clothes and some toiletries?” He asked them and then turning to me he asked: “You’re ok with that right? With the girls going to your place?”

I was. I mean, I wasn’t; not really. I didn’t like the idea of strangers just rummaging through my shit. But they didn’t feel like strangers. And I was very aware of the fact that if the girls were out getting my things at my apartment, I’d be here, alone with Timmy. That, I was definitely ok with. 

So it was settled. 15 minutes later the girls were off with a list of things I’d need and my keys in hand.

“Don’t worry Armie, I won’t snoop… much!” Charlie had teased, sticking her tongue out at me as she closed the door.

“Still think she’s cute?” Timmy asked with a knowing smile and I shrugged. Because, God help me, I did. This made him laugh, mouth wide open and full-throated. I was immediately in love with the sound of it. “Come on,” he said, taking my hand in his and pulling me behind him. “I’ll show you where the bathroom is so you can shower. You’re starting to smell.” He was teasing me and I liked that it felt natural.

‘You didn’t seem to mind the smell when I had you pinned against the door.’ I wanted to say but didn’t because I was suddenly very aware that the moment he had taken my hand in his, my cock was hard and straining against my clothes again.

Timmy led me down the corridor I had walked through that morning and into the bedroom I had woken up in. The bed had been made and the curtains opened. 

“I don’t have any clothes that will fit you,” Timmy said, rummaging through one of the drawers of the dresser facing the bed and then he pulled out a pair of boxer briefs with a tag still on them, throwing them at me. “But I ordered some underwear online the other day and they sent me these in the wrong size, they should fit.” So this was his room; the confirmation making me happy for some reason. I looked at the bed and imagined him sprawled naked in it, the memory of the scent of his sheets only furthering the situation happening in my pants. “There are towels and washcloths in here, come on I’ll show you.” 

The ensuite bathroom was simply decorated, just like his room. There was a white porcelain clawfoot tub against the far corner, white subway tiles on the walls, a glass walled shower with a rainfall shower head on the other side and his and hers sinks set in a distressed whitewashed table with intricately carved legs rather than the usual vanity. Large wicker baskets lined the lower table shelf and he bent down to pull a large fluffy gray towel from one of them, setting it down next to the sink.

“Shower gel or bar of soap?” he asked me and I felt caught suddenly as I had been staring at his ass and the way the fabric had been pulled taut against it when he had bent down. My hands were tingling with the need to grab it. I wanted to see if his asscheeks would fit in the palm of my hands the way I thought they would. 

“Uhh… either is fine.” I said, and he pulled a fresh bar of soap from one of the small drawers in the tabletop. 

He was looking for something in another one of the drawers when I couldn’t take it anymore and closed the gap between us, pressing up against him, forcing him to close the drawer and lean his pelvis against the table for balance, his palms flat on either side of the sink in front of him. He looked at me through our reflection in the mirror and I watched his face go from surprise to interest when I rolled my hips up so my erection pressed into him. He bit the inside of his bottom lip and smiled, pushing his butt into me and my breath caught between a moan and a groan. 

I was a little rough when I wrapped an arm around his shoulders to pull his back against my chest, my other arm snaking around his waist, forcing him to rely on me for balance because his hands could no longer touch the tabletop. Again, I had expected him to stop me but like when I had showed up and pinned him against his front door, he just let me. He let his arms fall on either side, not holding on to me, letting me do as I pleased, ceding control once again. It was exciting that despite knowing he was strong enough to stop me he didn't seem to want to. In fact, he appeared to rather like being manhandled. Which was good for me, because I wanted to make him come apart at the seams. 

I watched him through the mirror as I dragged my tongue from the base of his neck up to the back of his ear and kissed a tender spot there. His smile never faltered but I felt him stop breathing which gave me a little thrill.

" I wanna see you", I said and he rolled his head to the side so his cheek could rub against my facial hair.

"You're looking right at me." He countered, eyes half closed, breath a bit labored, hips rocking side to side so his ass was rubbing against my cock, which at this point was leaking through two layers of fabric.

"I wanna see the real you," I told him, the fingers of my left hand breaching the elastic band of both his joggers and his boxers so I could feel the skin of his lower belly, firm and cool under my touch.

He inhaled sharply when I did so, grinded backward even harder, his hands fisting at his sides so he wasn't tempted to grab onto me and I rocked my hips forward to greet him. I had moved my right hand to his throat when he had pressed into me earlier so it was an easy glide of my fingers up to cup his chin, which allowed me to raise my thumb to his open lips and graze the pad of it over the slightly pointed tip of a canine.  
  
"I want you to show me these," I beckoned; excitement, desire, anticipation and a little fear mingling inside my chest making me light-headed. Every nerve ending was tingling.

He laughed nervously and peered at me through the mirror, excitement swimming over his face but there was also reticence. Maybe a little worry.

"Are you sure," he asked and I nodded before biting his earlobe, the shudder it caused shaking his entire body and he needed a moment to steady himself. I didn’t think I had been more sure of anything in my life before that moment.

My hand had moved back to his throat and I felt him swallow against my fingers. I squeezed a little. I knew I couldn't hurt him and I wasn’t trying to block his airway. I simply wanted to show him that I was here and wanting; but also that I had him and that I wasn’t going to run away, scared. The pressure had the desired effect and I felt him relax, pressing into me even closer than he already was.

I watched as his eyes flashed red and then his irises turned pure gold. He opened his mouth a little wider and I watched mesmerized as his canines grew longer and became even pointer, taking a second or two to grow to their full potential. I'm not sure what I had expected. Maybe I had seen too many movies, but they definitely weren't as scary as I thought they would be. They were definitely sharp looking though. 

"Does it hurt when you bite?" My voice sounded rough, dry. I licked my lips reflexively, my eyes never leaving his face in the mirror. I’m sure he felt cock get even harder against him. How was that even possible?

"Not if I don't want it too." He replied in a whisper, the tips of his elongated canines grazing his bottom lip as he spoke. Clearly he liked the effect his true nature was having on me. He pondered this for a moment, mouth open, eyes looking up and to the right as though he was trying to recall a specific memory; and with the tip of his tongue pressing against the tip of a canine he looked at me coyly and smiled before adding: "Well, maybe just a little." 

I moaned and squeezed his throat a little harder and by the way he smiled I could tell he liked it when I did that. Just the idea of those pretty fangs sinking into my flesh was enough to make me come and I hissed through the strain of delaying the inevitable. He laughed at my reaction and that was unacceptable so I pushed my left hand further down into his pants, far enough so I could cup his equally hard dick in my hand, squeezing up toward his belly a little and the giggle was strangled in his throat. He was thrown off balance by a wave of unexpected pleasure and I had to tighten my grip on him to keep him upright. It was now my turn to laugh. I stopped rather quickly though when with a perfectly innocent look on his face he asked:

“Would you like me to bite you, Armie?” and this sent a jolt of electricity throughout my body. Immediately, there was a power shift and we both felt it. Even if I was the one with the hold on his throat and a hand on his erection, we both knew I was a lost cause. I didn't even have to answer. He knew I did. “Where would you like me to bite you?” I couldn’t speak, because he had resumed the salacious undulating of his hips against my pelvis and I was breathing too heavily to form words. I wanted to look away, to bury my face in the side of his neck or in his hair because the way he was looking at me made me want to throw him over my knee and turn the perfect white skin on his ass bright red, but I couldn’t. “Do you want me to bite your neck like in the movies?” he asked, looking me in the eyes, hips swaying in a constant grind. “Or maybe you want me to bite your wrist or just above your collarbone so you can hide the marks so no one knows you're letting a vampire take advantage of you?” He bit his bottom lip, fangs extending down over the pink plumpness of it and I groaned. I was starting to see stars. “I know,” he said, his voice teasing now. “You want me to bite the inside of your thigh.” I’m not sure what sound I made at that suggestion but it was nothing like I’d ever heard coming out of my mouth. “Is that what you want, Armie? For me to be a good little vampire and get on my knees so I can bite the inside of your thigh?”

I heard him say ‘oh shit’ and giggle as though realizing the consequences of what he’d just done and then my grip on his throat tightened uncontrollably and I lost both sight and hearing. I don't know if I moaned or groaned - screamed like a banshee, maybe? - but I felt my balls draw up and I was coming uncontrollably all over the inside of my shorts and jogging pants. I pulled him tighter against me, both by the throat but also by the hand that was down his pants to stop him from moving, the friction of the fabric over my oversensitive cock being too painful.

Slowly I was able to compose myself. My breathing regulated and my heart stopped thumping like it was trying to jump out of my chest. My vision and my hearing returned and I was panting into his ear. I realized then that we had fallen forward and he was holding both of us up with his hands on the table in front of the sink and that I was still squeezing his throat. I let go of him as though his skin had burned my hand but really it was panic because I had been gripping impossibly hard for a long time. 

My eyes darted up to meet his in the mirror and I relaxed slightly when I saw he hadn’t turned blue, yet the sight of him still froze me with awe. His eyes blazed in the reflection, gold irises looking iridescent and molten, fixed on me. He was breathing hard, mouth open, fangs suddenly looking a little more frightening now that my hunger for him had abated somewhat. Still I wasn’t scared. In fact, I thought he looked even more beautiful this way. 

I realized watching him that he looked ready to pounce but I could feel his restraint, his willpower. It was practically palpable. I was suddenly very aware that my left hand was still cupping him tightly and I released him, trailing my palm up his groin and over the flat plain of his belly, over to the top of his hip where it stayed. With my face nuzzled against the side of his neck, I watched him will his eyes back to emerald green and his fangs into retracting as slowly as they had extended.

“Feel better?” he asked, once he had returned to his human face, which granted wasn’t much different but the normality of it was jarring nonetheless and he dragged his check against my forehead and my temple, much like a cat headbutting it’s owner or it’s mate. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to speak so I nodded and kissed the spot where his shoulder met his neck.

He turned easily to face me and rising to his tiptoes he wrapped his arms around my neck, saying “Good!” before he kissed my nose, my lips and my chin in quick succession before nuzzling my neck and biting it softly. I hissed even if it didn’t hurt, the anticipation of his teeth sinking into me at some point still very present.

“So you think I’m pretty hot, huh?” his tone was teasing again. I didn’t know what to say so I pulled him tighter, allowing one hand to grip his ass so I could pull him up and close. “I mean, I knew you thought I was hot but I didn’t think you found me THAT hot.” He emphasised the word THAT and I grunted. I knew where he was going with this and how embarrassing. “That was... what? Like a minute and half of me grinding my ass against you and you were coming all over your pants like a 12 year old boy.” 

“Shut up.” I groaned and hid my face in his curls, tightening my arm around his shoulders and fisting a hand in his hair at the nape gently. “I couldn’t help it, You’ve been teasing me all day.”

“I know. I’m sorry about that.” he sounded contrite while rubbing his chin on my beard and it was adorable. Why was it that whatever he did was either incredibly sexy or absolutely charming?

“Was it you putting all those thoughts in my head all day?” I wanted to know. The idea that he could either read my mind or put thoughts in there made me uncomfortable. For a brief moment I wondered if earlier that morning he had maybe put the thought of what had happened to me last night in my head rather than just shown me what had actually happened but I immediately pushed it away. The memories had felt different, like I was an outsider looking in. Like I was inhabiting my body as a foreign entity. The fantasies I had been experiencing all day hadn’t felt like that. They had felt transparent even if vivid. 

“No, that was all you. It was your brain's way of processing the blood’s need to find me. I could feel it though. The way you longed for me to touch you. It hurt, it was so strong. It made me want you too. I had to stop myself a few times from just going to get you.” He was still hard and I felt him rock his hips forward to get a little friction. “At one point, I even had an incredible urge to give you a blow job!? It was making my mouth water.” 

This admission brought me back to my earlier fantasy when I had been holding him down against my thigh with a fisted hand in his hair, forcing him to watch me pleasure myself but not allowing him to touch. I remembered the way he had licked and bitten his lips like he was hungry for it. I shivered in excitement.

“I wouldn’t want to stop you from indulging in your urges.” I teased back, gripping his ass even tighter and I felt him smile against my neck.

All too soon he broke our embrace and with his hands flat against my chest he pushed me gently backwards toward the shower.

“Come on Barry, into the shower with you.”

“Barry?” I questioned, perplexed. Had he forgotten my name already?

“Barry Allen? The Flash! Known for his super speed.” he teased again and I felt my face flush a deep burning red. 

“Oh god!,” I groaned loudly. And he giggled, now busying himself with getting me out of my hoodie and my t-shirt. Given the way he was eyeing my bare chest however, I knew he was just being playful. “Are you gonna have a nickname for me for every situation?” I asked, trying to pull him to me again but he was too quick.

“Yes. But I kind of like Barry. I think I’m gonna stick with that for a while. Come on, get in the shower!” he insisted, even starting the jets for me.

“You’re very pushy and cocky.’’ I answered back, extending a hand under the spray to test the water before stepping out of my joggers. His eyes were immediately drawn downward and I did my best to contain a cocky smile of my own. ‘’Clearly Charlie gets it from you.’’

‘’I am cocky. But clearly so are you. Pun completely intended by the way. Because like, WOW!’’ The way he was looking up at me through dark lashes with just a hint of a smile over his bitten bottom lip had me starting to get hard all over again. ‘’No, no, no! None of that Barry. Shower. Then dinner. Then me.’’ he said, escaping my grabby hands once again. He took one more good look at my naked frame and after an approving or maybe desirous sigh - both? - he sauntered out of the bathroom, closing the door behind himself.

* * *

Cooking with Timmy and the girls was an experience, and I loved every minute of it. Music was playing in the background, Charlie had opened both a bottle of red and a bottle of white - there were four of us now, she’d argued when Timmy had commented on her excessiveness, we couldn’t be expected to get through the next three hours on one bottle alone - Flo had put Timmy in charge of a salad and she charged me with making the marinade for the fish, pointing out the recipe in a tattered cookbook she’d pulled from the shelf. Meanwhile she was removing pin bones from four beautiful salmon steaks.

It felt comfortable to be there with them. The ease with which we interacted could lead to believe I had always been a part of their little family and I liked the feeling of it. Flo did not approve of Timmy’s chopping and made us switch stations, laughing at his grumbling while she appraised my knife skills. Seemingly satisfied, she went to help Charlie set the table.

Most meals were eaten at the breakfast nook, Charlie had told me, saying the formal dining room was kept for special occasions like birthdays and holidays and since I wasn’t a guest but rather her new Nana, I didn’t merit special treatment. When I stared at her confused about the nickname she’d said quite seriously: “Well Timmy is my Poppie which makes you my new Nana... my only Nana actually. Oh this is so exciting, I’ve never had a Nana.”

“Who’s Barry?” she had questioned when I had rolled my eyes and mumbled something about nicknames in this house and how Barry and Nana were both ridiculous.. 

“Nobody!” I had quickly interjected, looking a little panicked when Timmy had been about to answer, not wanting to share the coming-all-over-my-pants-in-about-90-seconds incident from earlier. Kindly, he just giggled and winked at me, telling her it was an inside joke between the two of us. The idea that we would have an inside joke made my heart feel ready to burst. Charlie dropped it and I was relieved when Charlie moved on to the next thing that caught her interest which seemed to be Flo’s bum moving to the rhythm of the music.

The food was amazing. The company was even better. A third bottle was opened during the main course and everyone was starting to get a little giddy, even Timmy. I sat facing him, one of us at each end of the U shaped booth, the girls sitting next to each other in the back, clearly getting handsy under the table but I wasn’t interested in watching the show, more interested in watching Timmy as he savored a creamy spoonful of the quick chocolate mousse Flo had whipped up for dessert. I had to swallow not to drool as he cleaned his spoon with the flat of his tongue.

“What?” he asked, when he looked up and saw me unabashedly staring, my chin resting lazily in the palm of an open hand.

“How come you can eat?” I asked him, the wine having dissipated my ability to be diplomatic. “And you breathe too? Oh, and how come you can walk in the sun? Or did you use secret tunnels to get the croissants this morning?”

“Secret tunnels?” he chuckled. “You mean like the ones the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles use?”

“Those are sewers. And up until this morning vampires weren’t real either as far as I knew so don’t make fun of me smart ass.” I threw a bread roll at him which he dodged easily and he threw one right back at me which I caught one handed.

“Nice catch.” he said, sounding impressed and I shrugged. I had played ball a little in high school. When it was obvious I wasn’t going to stop with the third degree he obliged me and answered my questions. “I don’t use secret tunnels, I can walk in daylight although I need massive amounts of sunscreen if I’m going to stay in the sun but that has nothing to do with being a vampire. It’s just my delicate constitution.” 

He had said that last part with a southern accent worthy of Scarlett O’Hara, complete with the hand on the forehead as though he were fainting. This made the girls laugh. It just made me want to throw him over my shoulder and carry him off to bed like Rhett Butler but I contained myself. I really wanted to know about him, learn about what he was because clearly I had been misinformed.

“Most of the myths aren’t real.” he clarified off the bat. “Crosses, holy water and all that religious shit, it’s not real. The best way to describe it is like a virus. It infects your blood and once it does, it changes your physiology and affects your genetic makeup.”

“I drank your blood, am I infected?” I was suddenly feeling panicked. I didn’t want to be a… Again my reflex was to call him a monster and I hated that that’s where my unconscious mind went. Years of ingrained perceptions were fighting with this new knowledge and I had to get used to this new reality. 

“No, your fine. Other than being bonded to me for the next little while, that is.” he was chuckling and I felt his foot reach under the table to nudge mine. The contact calmed me. “That part Hollywood got right. You need to die with my blood in your system to turn.” I was relieved and felt guilty for it. If Timmy sensed it, he ignored it and continued. “We need blood to survive. It’s where our body gets all its nourishment. But I can still eat. I don’t need it but my body will process it and eliminate food the way yours does. It just won’t sustain me. It’s the same for breathing. I don’t need to breathe to survive but it’s uncomfortable if I don’t for extended periods of time. And the longer I don’t breathe the harder it is for my brain to process information and make my body obey its signals. Eventually if I go a very long time without breathing, my brain will kind of go into a state of stasis until I can breathe again.”

“And are you immortal?” I had asked the question with trepidation. The answer kind of scared me. I wasn’t sure why. Of everything he had just confessed, immortality seemed the most mythological trait he could possess and if that was true, then it stood to reason that any number of mythological creatures I had learned about in books and in movies could be real and that was frightening.

“Nobody, that I know of anyway, is truly immortal. It’s true that I can’t die of natural causes and that I’m immune to human illness. I don’t age. Or I do, but so slowly is imperceptible and old age wouldn’t kill me. But a stake through the heart or cutting my head off will kill me like it would anybody. Doesn’t even have to be wood. Any sharp object that can pierce my heart and stop the blood flow to my other organs will work.” 

“Like a bullet? Would a bullet through the heart kill you?” I was beginning to sound a little manic so I downed the rest of my glass of wine hoping the alcohol would help calm me. Flo refilled it immediately.

“Uh, yeah. I feel like that would kill anyone under the right circumstances. As long as the bullet was big enough to make the speed at which I heal irrelevant. Cause I heal quickly.” He was making a marked effort to not laugh at me which I appreciated because this was a lot to process. “Realistically, I’m fast and I’m strong. My reflexes are pretty sharp too. They’d have to catch me to have a decent change at shooting me straight through the heart. And If they miss… well let's just say they better be faster than me.” 

I flashed back to the sounds the bodies of Sven and Svi being ripped apart had made and I shuddered. I unconsciously empty another glass of wine. How many had I had at this point? Five? Six? I was definitely starting to feel a little tipsy. Maybe a lot tipsy judging by the way the words sounded thick when I spoke.

“What about silver or the full moon?” I asked and I caught him glance in Flo’s direction. She shrugged and smiled as thought giving him permission to say something that wasn’t his secret to share.

“Those things don’t affect vampires. It’s a werewolf thing. Although Hollywood got most of that wrong too.” he said and I didn’t even bulk at the idea that werewolves were real at this point because of course they were. “Silver doesn’t kill them although they’re allergic to it and they don’t need a full moon to turn. They can do that shit whenever the fuck they want. Creepy fuckers! Oh and if they get caught in the rain, they smell like wet dog for days.” 

“HEYYYYYY.” Flo objected and it was her turn to throw a bread roll at him. “Watch it old man or I’ll pull those teeth out and have them replaced by dentures.” Both Timmy and Charlie burst out laughing and she followed suit.. I was confused for a moment not understanding the joke and then I put two and two together. I looked at Flo wide eyed and mouth agape and she shrugged again. “Don’t worry Armie I only bite Charlie.” she joked, which I’m sure was meant to be reassuring but my brain was spinning. So was the room actually. I’m chin slipped out of my hand and I slumped onto the table.

“You’re a… How? What?” I knew there was a question - many of them - in there somewhere but I couldn't formulate any. 

“I think we broke him Poppie.” I heard Charlie say more concerned than amused at this point and I felt her soft touch on my cheek and then in my hair. ‘I should be taking care of you, not the other way around.’ I wanted to say but couldn’t speak. My eyes felt heavy and I let them close, enjoying the way her nails were scratching in my beard.

“He’s fine Charlie, he just had too much to drink and we just filled his head with a bunch fucked up shit he needs to process. Help me get him to bed.”

I remember being picked up and carried like a sack of potatoes and then being dropped gently into the same bed I had woken up in that morning. I sunk into the comfortable mattress and inhaled deeply the smell that was definitely Timmy’s in the sheets and the blankets all around me. I felt many hands taking off the clothes I had put on once the girls had gotten back from my apartment and then warm familiar fingers on my cheek again.

“Night Nana,” Charlie said, and she kissed my forehead. “I’m really glad you decided to come back.”

Then I felt Timmy’s familiar hands manhandling me until I was tucked under the plush duvet. I grasped until I caught hold of the hand that I knew was his and held it tightly.

“Don’t go. Please stay with me. I don’t want to walk up alone in the morning again.”

“I’m just going to get changed and I’ll be right back, don’t worry.” he said and it was his turn to kiss me, this time on the lips. You’re stuck with me for now, Barry.” 

I relaxed. Being stuck with him sounded nice. Although we were going to have to work on finding a new nickname!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I split this chapter into two because there was a lot of backstory to come. Part 2 will shed some light on how Timmy became a vampire and also on the Vampire/Werewolf dynamics. I'm super excited to start fleshing out this world a little.


	4. Show me all the things that I shouldn't know (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Smut and Timmy tells Armie his origin story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First half of this chapter is pure smut! Second half is all exposition as Timmy tells Armie his origin story. He's had a long life so he had a lot to say... please excuse the 8960ish word chapter!

The first thing I realized when I woke up was that I wasn't in my own bed… again. And I was naked… again. But this time I wasn’t alone. I assessed my physical state, remembering vaguely too much wine and conversations that didn’t make sense. My head was pounding and my mouth felt like cotton and tasted like something had crawled in there and died. The rest of me however, was in heaven. 

Timmy was sprawled over my chest, skin cool and smooth against mine, feeling like an extension of the silk sheets he kept on his bed. His hair was a tangled mess just under my chin and I buried my nose in it to smell him. God, he smelled good. He smelled like spring and sunshine and bliss. That’s what it was. He smelled blissful. One of his legs was thrown over mine, his lean thigh nestled between both of my larger ones, a narrow foot tucked under one of my calves. 

He was still asleep, the rise and fall of his back under my palm was slow and even and I tried to mirror the rhythm of it with my own, hoping it would help me get back to sleep; but my throbbing head wasn’t having it. I needed water and I needed aspirin. 

I shimmied my way out from under him slowly, wincing silently when his fingers fisted into a handful of chest hair as though he were trying to pull a blanket over himself and I had to dislodge them one by one before I could completely get out of bed. Timmy groaned and pulled my pillow to his chest, burying his face into it, mumbling something I didn’t understand.

Once in the bathroom I pulled my toothbrush and toothpaste from my toiletry bag and spent a long time brushing my teeth, feeling infinitely better once the festering taste was out of my mouth. My head was still killing me though. I went through all the little drawers in front of the sinks looking for pain meds before remembering that he was immune to human illnesses and therefore probably didn’t need acetaminophen or ibuprofen when he had a headache. *If* he even got headaches.

I decided to take a shower, hoping the hot water would help clear the cobwebs and give the huge glass of water I had just downed time to hydrate me enough to at least lessen the pain. And it did somewhat. I stood under the jet a long time, not thinking about anything in particular, just focusing on breathing and feeling the heat from the water loosen my muscles. I wasn’t ready to think about everything I had learned the night before at dinner. I would have to at some point I knew, but right now I didn’t care. I was content just being here, with him… with them. 

My head still hurt when I emerged from the bathroom, a towel wrapped around my hips in case TImmy had woken up. I hadn’t wanted to be presumptuous by parading around naked in front of him; my behavior of the day before notwithstanding. Now that I had released some of the tension that had built up because of the blood bind visions - embarrassingly quickly I reminded myself - I didn’t want him to think that’s all I was here for. Not that I had any idea what I was here for other than to wait out the effects of having his blood in my system, but i didn’t want him to think it was only because he was gorgeous and I wanted to fuck him senseless. Which I did. But that wasn’t the point.

I was stopped in my tracks when I looked to the bed and saw him, relatively in the same position I had left him in, only now the sheets had been pushed down below his ass and he had one of the pillows I had slept on pressed under his pelvis, thighs clenched around it and he was rutting against the silk fabric. My mouth fell open as I watched the perfection that was his small but round ass move up and down, contracting tightly with each soft thrust of his hips. I could hear him moan despite his face being buried in my other pillow, the sound coming from deep in his throat as he exhaled loudly, his long fingers fisting into the stuffing as he pulled it toward him to muffle it.

I watched him for a few minutes, my own erection tenting the towel and threatening to make it fall, in awe of how beautiful he was. He was long and narrow, wider in the shoulder than at the hip, his waist curving in slightly in an inviting swerve. His skin looked smooth and soft, pale even in the dampered light coming in from drawn curtains, and it stretched taut over lean muscles that constricted or swelled depending on how he moved. Everything about him was long and lean. His neck, his thighs, his arms, his fingers. I wondered if his cock would be the same and the need to touch him flooded me again.

I lost the towel on the way to the bed and sat next to him, a hand already on the small of his back and I felt him tense under my open palm. He stopped rutting, a moan caught in his throat and he waited. He sighed and buried his face deeper in the pillow when I slid my hand up toward his shoulders, probably the opposite direction in which he wanted me to go but that was ok because I was determined to have this last longer this time.

“Good morning,” I said and he allowed the moan to escape before mumbling a soft breathy ‘morning’ back to me. I stroked his back all the way up to the back of his neck and squeezed before backtracking down his spine, feeling each vertebrae on the heel of my palm, following the dip below his kidneys and then over the swell of his ass, which he raised to greet my hand before I stopped to squeeze there too. I did this a few times just because I liked the way he reacted to the way I was petting him, practically purring as though he were a cat, moving rather like a feline as well. 

Though I was sorely tempted to press my thumb between his asscheeks so I could see how tight his hole was, I didn't; I wanted to draw this out as long as possible. Eventually, I allowed my hand to rest on his hip and I nudged him so he would roll over. I had expected him to roll onto his back and leave the pillow behind, instead he rolled to his side, facing me, the pillow still firmly clenched between his thighs and he scooted over so I could lie next to him. 

Once I was in bed, he pulled me to him with an arm around my shoulders and a leg thrown over mine. He kissed me, tongue lapping at my lips before closing on them and he canted his hips forward into the pillow between us when I did the same in return. Soon we were a tangled mess of arms and legs, hands fisting into handfuls of hair as we both grinded our hips into the same pillow in unison, panting heavily into each other's mouths. My hand was on his ass, firmly gripping an asscheek that fit perfectly into my palm and I was ready to rip the pillow from between us and roll on top of him so I could finally press my hard cock against his rather than into plush stuffing, when the pain in my head flashed and I had to stop for a minute to let it pass.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, sounding out of breath, when I pressed my forehead against his and closed my eyes against the pain.

“Headache.” I answered simply and he started to laugh.

“Ok, Dear. I’ll go sleep in the guestroom.” he teased and I couldn’t help but laugh as well. First ‘Barry The Flash Allen’ and now ‘Dear’ like I was some 1950’s housewife trying to find an excuse to not have to have sex with my husband.

“Fuck you.” I retorted and he laughed again.

“Promises, promises.” he answered back, teasing still.

I groaned when he pulled away from me, both from the loss of his proximity and the pain it caused my head to move and I felt him remove the pillow and roll me onto my back. He sat up and I opened my eyes just in time to watch his fangs finish extending. He pressed the pad of his thumb against the left one and winced when it pierced his skin, dark red blood starting to form a drop on the wound when he pulled his hand away from his mouth.

“Open up,” he said, moving his thumb toward my lips and he must have noticed my reticence because he smirked before adding: “One more drop isn’t gonna make a difference to the duration of the blood bind Armie. But it will get rid of that headache. And as I’d very much like you to fuck me finally, the sooner that happens the better.” 

That was all the coaxing I needed. I opened my mouth and he slipped his thumb between my lips so I could lick the blood and the tiny wound clean. The effects were almost instantaneous. Within seconds I could feel the headache receding and within a minute it was gone.

"Better?" He asked and I nodded. "Good. Now that that's taken care of, is there anything else you need before we get this show on the road? Are you hungry, are you thirsty, do you need to pee?" God he was a brat... and I love it.

"You're such a pain in the ass!" I admonished with little doubt that I thought it was adorable given my tone. Nevertheless I gave the inside of his right thigh a hard smack for good measure, which made yelp and then giggle, cheeks flushed and eyes still flowing gold despite his fangs having retracted.

"I can be!" His voice was lower now, still playful but lusty. He looked down at his thigh and bit his bottom lip, eyes getting even more golden at the sight of the hand print appearing on his skin. "But I'd rather you be a pain in mine." 

I had always been a man of action more so than a man of words - ironic for a stage actor, I know - so rather than a snappy comeback, I pulled him on top of me and immediately rolled him over so he was pinned beneath me, thighs parted on either side of my hips and arms pinned against the mattress above his head. He bucked up against me and I held him down by pressing my entire pelvis into his, butterflying my thighs at the hips so my cock pressed his into his belly, hard and dripping. 

“Were you thinking about me when you were fucking into my pillow?” I asked and he practically mewled, rubbing his groin from side to side against me since my weight on him wasn’t allowing him to thrust upward. “Is that a yes?” 

“Mmhmm.” he mumbled, nodding his head and fighting the grip I had on his wrists. Again I knew he could have gotten free if he wanted to, but he wasn't using any extraneous force or supernatural powers to do so. Instead he was allowing me the control and clearly enjoying being at my mercy.

"So, you want me to fuck you, Timmy?" I asked in a sultry voice, rocking into him, both our cocks getting slick and slippery with precome. Another nod. Eager. "Where do you want me to fuck you?" He looked at me through hooded lids and smiled coyly. He knew this was payback for his little display in the mirror not 18 hours ago. "Do you want me to fuck you just like this? Rubbing up against you until you come, just like you did to me yesterday?" He opened his mouth but no sound came out. Good, now I knew how to shut him up when he was being bratty. "Or maybe you want me to fuck your mouth? Push my hard cock all the way to the back of your throat so I can feel those pretty pink lips of yours down at the base of it?" 

His thighs were already shaking and I hadn't even really touched him yet. I gripped both wrists in my left hand and snaked my right arm between our bodies so I could take hold of both our erections and stroke them together a few times, getting my fingers slicked before moving down just a bit further so I could press the tip of my middle finger against his hole. "Or did you want me to fuck you here?" I asked, pushing in up to the first knuckle. He clenched and then relaxed around me, allowing me to push in further. "Is that what you want Timmy? Do you want my big cock inside your tight little ass, stretching you out and filling you up?" 

Another few stroked around our cocks fisted tightly in my hand to get my fingers covered properly and then I was pushing two fingers inside him, slowly but deliberately and he groaned, turning to hide his face against my forearm, his nose rubbing against the hair of it. I could see the effort it was taking him to not buck me off.. He wanted me to make him wait, to decide for him how I was going to fuck him, how I was going to make him feel good, and it was almost overwhelming. 

“I bet I don’t even need to touch your cock and you’d come just from me being inside you. You're so ready for me already. Is that what you were doing while I was in the shower? Were you getting yourself ready for me while you were alone in bed?” I took him a second but eventually he nodded, cheeks turning red at the admission. He was quite the conundrum; cocky and almost foul mouthed one minute and submissive and shy the next. It was incredibly arousing. “How many fingers did you get up to?” I wanted to know, after I had removed my two adding “Answer me!” with a soft but insistent tap on his thigh when he didn’t reply quickly enough.

“Three,” he breathed, face pressing harder into my arm.

“Good boy.” I praised and he keened, torso raising off the mattress as his back curved when a spasm rocked through him.

I kissed him as I pushed inside him, my cock throbbing with anticipation and need and moaned into his mouth because of how tight yet inviting he felt.

“Fuck! Armie,” he groaned as I set a steady pace, my name sounding like it was dripping honey and I wanted to lick it out of his mouth. 

His back arched again, followed by his neck and then his nails dug into his palms as he fists his hands, his wrists still held tight in my left hand, my right hand pulling his right knee up to his ribcage so I could thrust deeper, harder. He tried raising his hips so he could get some friction against his dripping dick but but I stopped him.

“No touching.” I corrected. “I want to see you come just from having me inside you. Can you do that for me?” 

He nodded and scrunched his face in concentration. There are no words for how beautiful he was, spread out under me, taking me inside and giving himself with abandon even if he had the power to just take what he needed and leave me wanting. Instead he trusted me to take care of him and I wanted nothing more than to bury myself deep inside him and stay there forever.

“Armie…” There it was again. My name, so sweet sounding surrounded by his moans and whinny sighs.

“Come for me, baby.” I whispered close to his ear, having lowered my chest to his because I couldn't get close enough, my words both a request and a permission. As though he had been waiting for me to give it, he exploded between us, thighs clamping down impossibly tight around my hips, staccatoed deep grunts escaping his throat as his entire body shook from the release. 

I had stopped moving inside him because his thighs had been closed around me so tightly that I couldn't move and once he relaxed his grip, I began a slow and shallow back and forth with my pelvis. I had been plunging into him rather roughly until he came and I was sure he’d be sore.

“I want to feel you come inside me Armie, please fuck me harder.”

Who knew there were words that could sound even better than my name on his tongue? I picked up the pace. I had let go of his wrists after he had come and he wrapped his arms around my neck, his legs doing the same around the back of my thighs and he pushed me even deeper inside himself with the back of his heels. We created a rhythm; the sound of my pelvis slapping against his ass followed by his grunting and my moaning.

“Armie, I’m going to come again.” he said suddenly and two thrusts later he was spilling between our bellies once more. Not to be outdown, I followed suit, deep inside him like he had wanted. We were both shaking and I collapsed on top of him.

I don’t know how much time had passed after we had both come and before our breathing and heart rate had steadied but I must have dozed off because I woke up a while later, now soft but still inside him and he was snoring soundly under me. He groaned when I pulled out and he wrapped his arms around my neck again, keeping me against him. 

“You aren’t allowed to leave this bed.” he grumbled into my neck.

“Ha. So I was right yesterday then. You do want to keep me prisoner.” I said in mock offense, raising up on my elbows so I could look down at him and he laughed, eyes still blurry with sleep. “That was your plan all along wasn’t it? Wait til the blood bind calls me back to you and then seduce me so you can keep me here in a lust filled post orgasmic daze?”

“Mmhmm.” he agreed, stretching languidly under me, the way his body was contorting, pelvis pressed up into mine, causing a renewed awakening in my belly and in my groin. “Is it working?” 

“You tell me!” I replied, pushing my hips against him so he could feel the effect he had on me.

After we had fucked again, we took a break to get cleaned up, grab some food from the kitchen - Charlie had already prepped us some plates with boiled eggs, cheese, muffins and some fruits leaving a note with them that simply read ‘To be eaten in bed’ - and then we’d returned to the cozy confines of Timmy’s room. We sat cross legged on the bed with the plates between us and cups of coffee in hand, eating what Charlie had prepared for us, a mild awkwardness having settled in the silence, not because we weren’t at ease but because we realized we really didn’t know each other even if at this point we knew each other’s body intimately.

“Can I ask you something?” I asked after a while, my plate empty while Timmy pecked at his muffin, the rest of the plate untouched. He didn’t need to eat, I had remembered, not human food anyway. He nodded, indicating that I could. “How… or rather who… I don’t know how to ask this. Where do you get the blood you drink I guess is the best way to formulate that?”

"From willing donors." He answered and seeing as how I still had questions he added: "There's a place in town called the Vampire Lounge; I don't know if you've heard of it. It's kind of a sexclub that caters to people with a specific type of blood kink. It was opened a long time ago by someone I used to know, for people who are into vampire culture, or what they think is vampire culture anyway. They dress up in gaudy outfits and go to this club to pretend to be vampires. Then you have those who like to roleplay the victims and like being bitten."

"So people don't know that you're a vampire when you're feeding off of them?" I didn't want to sound judgmental but I could hear the disagreement in my voice.

"I don't lie to them. In fact I make a point of stating that I'm a vampire. They just think I'm pretending and I don't exactly correct them. Nobody gets hurt. If I feed regularly enough, I don't have to drink that much. It's less than what you would give during a blood drive. This way I don’t have to stalk people in dark alleys and leave dead bodies lying around and they get their rocks off being bitten. It’s a win/win.” 

“Can’t you get blood bags from a blood bank or something?” I asked him, ignoring the mention of dead bodies for now… because, fuck!

“It’s not like anybody can just walk up to a blood bank and say ‘I’d like to buy a case of your finest Oneg please’? That shit’s not for sale. And besides, you can’t store blood in your fridge and drink it. It doesn’t work that way.” There was an edge to his tone and I couldn’t figure it out. Was he annoyed? Was he amused and being facetious? “Let me ask you a question. If I came up to you in a bar and showed you I was a vampire, would you sit around waiting for me to bite you, offering yourself up as prime rib? Or would you run?” I didn’t have to answer. We both knew I’d run. I had run yesterday, and the guilt I felt because of it was probably painted all over my face. “It’s ok Armie. I know it’s the blood bind that made you come back. I’m just hoping that by the time it wears off you’ll have gotten to know me enough to not be afraid of me.”

He looked so sad in that moment that every instinct in me was to protect rather than run. I lunged at him, plates flying and cups - now empty, thank god - thrown to the wayside as I crashed into him and pinned him to the mattress under me, layering kiss upon kiss upon kiss on his cheeks, his forehead, his chin, his lips, his neck, any place I could reach. He giggled beneath me, shaking his face from side to side trying to avoid the assault of want and reassurance I was bringing down on him. Eventually he stopped fighting and I kissed him, softly on the lips but with purpose.

“For what it’s worth, I like you. That’s not the blood bind right? The blood bind makes me want to fuck you, but it doesn’t make me think you're sweet or funny, or a good person, does it? Because I do. You saved me when you didn’t have too. I see how you love and care for Charlie and Flo and I see how much they love you back. That’s not the blood bind. That’s you. And ok you’re like SUPER bratty and a cocky little shit but I kind like that. So I may have run, and yes it’s the blood bind that made me come back. But it’s not the blood bind that makes me want to get to know you better, and I do. So will you tell me?”

“What do you want to know?” he asked, looking up at me with both wonder and apprehension, as though he were shocked I was actually interested and scared that what he might share would scare me off.

“Everything.” I said, kissing him again. “I want to know everything about you.” Boy, was I not ready for the story I was about to be told.

* * *

“I was born in Paris during la Belle Époque, in 1895 more precisely. That makes me 125 years old. My parents were artists and we lived in the Montmartre district, which was the ‘it’ place to be for the art community at the time. I grew up surrounded by painters, musicians and theatre actors. I had a pretty standard childhood despite that though. Nothing like what kids have today but we lived in a decent enough apartment and food was rarely if ever an issue. I had one older sister, Pauline, and we were best friends. I went to school for a while but then I became more interested in arts and began spending more time with my mother who was an actress and a seamstress in one of the local theatre companies. I started acting when I was 14, small parts here and there when they needed a younger man for a role, and by the time I was 18 I had become one of the leading actors in the company. 

When I was 19, a production I was in went on tour for a three weeks stay at the Hippodrome which at that time was one of the big theaters here in New York. Every night was sold out and we had crowds of upper class expats waiting to wine and dine us after each representation.

That’s how I met Camille, who would later become my wife. She was a French opere who worked for the Vanderbilts. One night the entire company was invited to a party held by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, who was an artist in her own right as well as being a socialite. Gertrude had invited Camille thinking she’d appreciate spending time with people from her homeland. We hit it off right away. She was 18 and beautiful. She was tiny but man did she have an attitude. You couldn’t tell her what to do and I liked that about her. She was smart and had ideas and wasn’t afraid to share them. She got in trouble a lot with her employer for refusing to prioritize the boys' education over the girls. I spent every free minute with her and when the time came for my company to head back home, I decided to stay. 

Six months later we were married and five months after that, our daughter, Chloe, was born. It was quite the scandal back then. But we didn’t care that people knew she had been conceived out of wedlock because we loved each other and it was none of their business what we did in private before or after we were married. I continued to act and became fairly well known thanks to Gertrude’s little circle. Camille continued to teach and we were really happy for a few years. 

In June of 1918 we began hearing news from our families in Europe. People were falling ill to the Spanish Flu and dying. I received a telegram from my sister telling me both my parents had passed and that she herself was sick and didn’t know if she would survive. She didn’t. A month later I received another telegram from her husband giving me the news and sending prayers for our health and safety here in New York. Between the First World War and this pandemic, things were pretty dire in the country. I took the news hard and couldn’t get out of bed for a few days. Camille and Chloe were the only reasons I was able to do so eventually.

Later that year my company was commissioned by the government to go on tour and educate people on how to prevent the spread of the disease. Before each representation of the play we were presenting, there would be an opening act that consisted of informing people on how the disease was spread and how to minimize risk of contagion.

I was in Boston when I received a telegram from Gertrude telling me I needed to come home because Camille had fallen ill and they worried it was the flu. She died in my arms two days later. Because they worried for Chloe, she was sent to stay with Gertrude until it was determined if I had been exposed to the virus given my refusal to leave Camille’s bedside. 

Thankfully I didn’t. But with Camille gone, I quickly spiraled into a bout of self destructive drinking and drug abuse. I was 24 years old, I was a widower who had lost his entire family, I was in a country that wasn’t mine and had a daughter I was terrified of losing and wasn’t sure how to raise because for all of Camille’s feminist ideals, we were still in 1918 and I hadn’t been taught how to take care of children. 

After the fourth or fifth time Gertrude had come to find me half dead in a puddle of my own puke, or in the bed of some prostitute, we both agreed that it would be best for Chloe if I signed my parental rights over to her and she would become my daughter’s guardian. Although I knew it’s what was best, that just furthered my own self loathing and caused me to spiral even further. 

I don’t really remember the night I was turned. I was out of my mind on opium in the bed of someone's wife or husband or… I don’t really know. Somebody was pissed about it though. Because I got beat up pretty bad. And I was left for dead in the middle of an alley in Chinatown.

The next thing I remember is waking up in this apartment, though it looked pretty different back then, and about three days had passed. I remember feeling better than I had ever felt in my life, though I can't remember not feeling like this now, and I was hungry in a way I can't really describe. 

I heard someone say 'ah! There you are Poppet,’ in an Irish accent and I immediately hated the term of endearment, though I grew to love it over the years and now I miss it terribly. But at the time I felt I didn’t deserve for anyone to show me kindness or care in any way. 

When I opened my eyes and saw Saoirse, everything changed. She was this statuesque, stunningly beautiful goddess of a woman that didn’t look to be any older than I was. She looked back at me with her blue eyes and blond hair perfectly coiffed in a puffed out bun as was the style back then, and just smiled. She didn’t even bother hiding her fangs. It’s a weird thing but I knew immediately I was hers and the feeling radiated through me in such a way that it made all the pain I had been feeling since losing Camille, just vanish. 

I don’t mean to make it seem like I no longer cared about my wife or my daughter. That’s not it at all. But the despair that had taken over my entire being was gone and it was because of her. Because I was reborn as hers. 

She sat in a winged armchair near my bedside, smiling sweetly, an open leather bound book on her lap and a cup of tea in her hand. ‘It took you a long time to wake up. I thought maybe I was too late in making you drink my blood and you had died before it could really take effect. You must be famished.’ she said to me and I nodded. Nothing about what she was saying scared me. It made sense because she was saying it.

She rang a bell and a few seconds later a young man, ironically not unlike myself - pretty, dark hair, blue eyes, a mouth you kind of just want to sink into - came in and sat on the bed next to me. I remember wondering if he was an offering and if so, what he was being offered as, because I immediately wanted him. I wanted to devour him both as a meal and as something to worship and defile at the same time. 

She had kissed him, demurely but on the lips before he sat down and he kissed me in turn before leaning in with his neck stretched towards my mouth and instinctively my fangs extended and I knew what to do. I was a little sloppy the first time I fed, I made it more painful for him than it has to be. In fact it’s actually pretty pleasurable if done right as I’ve mentioned. But Saoirse was patient with her instructions and she quickly taught me how to feed without draining someone completely and how to make it good for them too. 

The first few weeks are critical for new vampires. You have to feed constantly to boost your system and adapt it to it’s physiology. If you don’t feed enough to sustain that change your body breaks down and dies. So I spent most of my time in bed with Saoirse and whoever she was bringing me to feed off of. It was a steady rotation of six or seven people she trusted and who trusted her, most of them kept quiet with the promise of one day being turned as well. 

Once I was up to it, we started going about our lives. I left the theater company and had no family other than Chloe left so people didn’t miss me. Eventually the friends I had made stopped inquiring about me and I was free to start a new life. We were careful to avoid places where people might recognize me and eventually we left the city for a while. Saoirse had an apartment in Chicago and we stayed there for a few years. 

Because she fluttered through American high society, every once in a while she would come home with news of Chloe and how she was doing at Gertrude’s. It had taken her some time to adapt to the loss of her mother and myself but she was little when it had happened and already knew and loved Gertrude. I kept an eye on her throughout the years obviously. Being a Vanderbilt, Gertrude didn’t need money to help raise her but I wanted to make sure she was cared for and loved; which she was. With time I got used to being separated from her. Saoirse had insisted that it would be harder for her if I was around and eventually disappeared once people noticed that I didn’t age rather than just let her assume I had died when she was a baby. 

I knew Saoirse was right but I never stopped loving her. She got married in 1936 to a bus driver much to Gertrude’s dismay but she was happy. And loved. Unfortunately her husband was killed during World War II. She was pregnant with my grand-daughter when it happened. Coline was born seven months after her father’s death. Chloe never remarried.

In the 1940s, an infection began spreading through the vampire population. It started in New York and spread to the rest of North America quickly. Nobody really knows where it came from or why we were being affected, though we quickly figured out it was contracted through feeding, which meant there was no way of avoiding it. 

Of those who became infected, many died and those who didn’t became incapable of reproducing. Not that we were popping out new vamps like they were coming off an assembly line, or anything. Making a vampire is kind of like having kids. You have to raise them and not everybody wants the hassle. But those who tried, found their issues not surviving the transformation and in fact, dying in a rather painful way. It was as though their bodies were rejecting the change by rejecting their organs as they mutated. It was pretty horrible. Both Saoirse and I were lucky enough to never get infected.

We spent a good portion of the 40s and 50s abroad to avoid the spread of the infection. We lived in Spain and Italy and spent a few years in Ireland though Saoirse didn’t like going back there much. Too many memories of her human life of something… which I always found odd given she was born in the 14th century and Ireland in the 1950s looked nothing like I’d imagine Ireland in 1350 would have looked like. Something about stone circles and mystical energy she didn’t like or whatever. She knew things I couldn’t even begin to imagine.

We came back to New York in 1958. The spread of the infection seemed to have abated but we were faced with a whole new problem. The werewolves had found out that those who had been infected could no longer reproduce, which was good for them. Vampire bites are fatal to werewolves. Had I mentioned that? A very long time ago, like around the time Saoirse was turned and for centuries before, there had been a great war between our species. Over the years, the reasons for this war were forgotten and the fighting had stopped but the strife between us was maintained. They kept to themselves and we kept to ourselves and as long as nobody pissed off the other, things were… civil. 

When the North American packs had found out about the infection, they had seized the opportunity to annihilate what they perceived as a lifelong threat. They started hunting and viciously killing vampires, specifically those of us who could still turn humans. So we were at war again. News spread throughout the other packs round the world and soon, no place was safe. Vampires everywhere were being hunted so there was no point in leaving the city. Besides, now that I was back and could see my family, even if they couldn’t see me, I didn’t want to be away from them again. Chloe was 43 by then - beautiful and looked just like Camille - and her daughter, Coline, was 18. Charlie looks a lot like her. A few years later, Coline met this guy that she was head over heels in love with. 

Though I was only watching from afar, I could tell something was wrong. She stopped going out with her friends, she stopped visiting with her mother and despite her obvious dislike of the man, Coline married him anyway. A few months later, they moved to Virginia because he said he had a job opportunity there. From what I could tell, Chloe didn’t hear from her much and she rarely visited. In early 1966, she showed up on her mother’s doorstep, pregnant and badly beaten. The bastard had almost killed her. I was livid. I wanted to go to Virginia and find him but Saoirse told me to wait, that he’d find his way back to New York soon enough.

As she predicted, Coline’s husband came looking for her a few weeks later. I was doing my daily stake out when I saw him. Chloe hadn’t allowed him to come in and chased him away with a bat. My daughter was fierce, like her mother. I followed him as he went to a local bar to lick his wounds and once he was drunk enough, lured him to the alley where I made sure he would never touch my grand-daughter or my great-grand-daughter again.

I was so angry that I was reckless in my handling of him and I didn’t notice a pair of wolves in the bar. They must have seen the whole thing. They accosted me as I exited the alley and attacked me. Saoirse, sensing I was in trouble - vampires can sense their issue similarly to how I can sense you through the blood bind - and she came to rescue me. By then, the duo had become an entire pack and we were no match for them. In my need to protect my family, I had exposed us and ultimately, Saoirse paid the price for it. I barely made it out alive and she gave hers to protect mine. I couldn’t go home. I was too afraid they’d follow me and find out where the apartment was. I went underground for a few hours, long enough to allow my body to heal and for my heart to stop feeling like it was being ripped apart.

Saoirse was my mother, my friend and my lover. Emotionally I was gutted. Because, not only was she gone but it was my fault. She had warned me of the risk in keeping ties with your past and I had disregarded her. Now, she was in the past too. The guilt and the loss I felt because of this, ate at me for decades. 

Beyond that, there’s a physical reaction that occurs when the bond you have with your maker is severed. It takes some time for your blood to acclimate to no longer being bound to someone and it’s rather painful. I considered ending my own life but I had abandoned Chloe once, I couldn’t bring myself to do it again. I hired people to close up the apartment and I moved into a small one bedroom walk up close to the girls so I could be near them.

I lived in solitude for a long time. Going out only to feed or for what I referred to as my nightly stroll. This consisted in stalking my family and making sure they were ok. Coline had a girl a few months after her mother had chased her husband away and she never tried to find him, not that she would have obviously. In fact she didn’t put his name on the birth certificate at Chloe’s insistence, who being practical like her mother had been, thought that if he did show up one day, he would have a hard time claiming Claudette as his own this way. Obviously they had no idea that would never happen.

By the mid 70s, pretty much all vampires with the ability to still turn humans in New York city had been hunted and killed and only a fraction of the others who couldn’t create issues remained. Our population had been practically decimated. I survived on the bare minimum, feeding only enough to stay alive and healthy and going back into hiding once I had done so.

Claudette and Coline continued to live with Chloe and I continued to watch over them from my tiny apartment. They seemed happy and content with their lives. In late 1994, just a few months shy of her 80th birthday, my Chloe passed away. She did so peacefully, in her bed with her daughter and her grand-daughter by her side. I watched from the fire escape as she took her final breath. 

I cried more that night than I had cried in an entire decade. Probably more. She had lived a full and healthy life. She had traveled, she had had a great love, a daughter and a granddaughter who loved her and yet I knew from conversations I had overheard floating in the summer air from their apartment to mine that she had also spent her entire life wondering what had happened to her deadbeat father who had abandoned her. She had loved her life with Gertrude as a child and she had been treated as though she were one of the Vanderbilts, even having received a fair inheritance from Gertrude when she’d passed, but still she had always wondered what had become of me and why I would had abandoned her. This saddened me and sent me into a state of depression I had not experienced before.

Not a year later, my granddaughter was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. She was only 55 years old and given less than three months to live. By the time I had found out about the cancer she had already started chemo and it was too late for me to give her my blood and save her. The chemo would counteract the effects of the blood. One night I snuck into her hospital room and sat with her while she slept, holding her hand. It was the first time I had held any of my girls since I had signed away my paternal rights and had hugged Chloe before walking away, 75 years prior. She never woke up. She died days later from a heart attack, her body not able to handle the chemo. 

Claudette did not cope well with losing both her grandmother and her mother in the span of a year. She began going out and drinking till all hours, cavorting with unsavory characters and ended up getting pregnant following a series of one night stands. Though she stopped partying and drinking, she was still hanging out with a bad crowd who were involved with a Werewolf pack. These wolves were heavily involved in trafficking of all kinds. 

Charlotte was born on a rainy day in 1996 at the local hospital and as I had when Coline had been there, I snuck in late at night to visit them. Claudette was sleeping soundly. Her labor had been difficult and she needed her rest. So when the baby began fussing in her little bassinet next to her, I quickly scooped her up so she wouldn’t wake up her mother. I rocked her back to sleep and kept her in my arms for a long time afterwards, knowing this would likely be the only time I would ever be able to do so. She was so warm and fit so perfectly in my arms. I thought back to all the years that had passed since I had held Chloe like this on the day she was born, 81 years ago and realized how incredibly fortunate I had been to be able to see all these women that were mine, live their lives and flourish despite all the tragedies that life inevitably dealt both them and myself. I left the hospital that night with a new resolve to live rather than just exist. Life had one more tragic turn for us however.

One day, Claudette was out taking a walk with the baby when she caught me staring at them from across the street. Rather than shy away she approached me. I didn’t know how to react so I simply smiled and said hello. She said she’d seen me around a few times and asked if I lived in the area. I walked with her that afternoon and every afternoon after that. On afternoons it rained, she would invite me over for coffee and I would take care of Charlie, giving her time to do some things around the apartment. Being close to them, being able to interact with them was incredible. I had spent so many years on the outside looking in, that to finally be able to be an active part of their lives was indescribable.

It was on one of those rainy days, about five months after Charlie was born, that tragedy struck again. Claudette was taking a load of laundry to the laundry room in the basement of the building when she was attacked by two wolves as retaliation for something one of her unavory friends had either done or not done. In that moment, I had felt her fear and smelled her blood more palpably than I had felt anything in my life. I quickly put Charlie in her crib and ran down to the basement but I was too late. She was already gone. They had mauled her to death. I flew into a blind rage and chased the wolves out of the building, catching up with them a few blocks away. 

I’ll spare you the details of the scene that followed but it wasn’t pretty. I had never been so vicious in my life. I hadn’t been careful either, attacking them out in the open and I knew authorities would be called and also that word would get back to the pack. Given the damage, it was clear they would know a vampire had been the culprit. 

I went back to Claudette's apartment, grabbed Charlie and ran. I don’t know why I took her. Realistically the wolves had no way of knowing my attack on their pack was in response to their attack on Claudette. Nobody knew I existed. But I couldn't bear to leave her. Charlie had nobody. No family to speak of… except for me.

After Chloe had died, Coline and Claudette hadn’t maintained much of a relationship with the Vanderbilts and circumstances had been such that all the girls had always been the only child. If I’m honest, it was also that I couldn’t stand the idea of being alone anymore. I had fallen so in love with Charlie that I could not fathom running away again. It had broken me to do so the first time when I had left Chloe. I didn’t think I'd survive doing it again.

We left New York and headed to Paris. During our time together, Saoirse had given me all the codes to all the bank accounts and the trusts that managed all her properties etc. So money has never been a problem. She had had over 600 years worth of accumulated wealth and had been a cunning investor growing that fortune even larger after her death. Out of guilt I had never touched the money Saoirse had left me but with Charlie to take care of now, things were different. 

We never stayed in the same place for long. A few months at most. Never long enough to make friends or develop relationships. My sole focus became keeping her safe and the best way to do that was to keep moving. She was about five when she started asking to settle down in one place. By the time she was ten, she had started to rebel and would refuse to move. She would run away when she would notice the telltale signs that we were getting ready to leave a city and I would have to drag her back kicking and screaming. She even began threatening to tell people what I was… She was feisty even back then.

So we came home. I’m not sure when I had started to think of New York as my home but I did. Maybe it’s because my family had been there. Or maybe it’s because that’s where I had been reborn. But when I agreed to stay in one place for a while, this was the only place that made sense. I had this apartment opened and Charlie and I moved in. We’ve been here 14 years now. I could go on, and tell you about Charlie and how Flo came to be in the picture given my obvious dislike of the wolves. But I think that's more something you should speak to her about.”

I said nothing for a long time after he finished talking. What could I say. He had lived for so long and experienced so much loss and tragedy I had no idea how he could possibly still be breathing nevermind, be here, with me. I would have ended it long ago. And yet, here he was, happy and bubbly and to anyone looking in from the outside, a perfectly normal 21st century twenty something. I had no words.

As he had told me his story, he had settled with his head on my chest and I had been playing unconsciously with his curls. I fisted my hand in them and pulled his head back gently so he was looking at me. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say until the words came spilling out.

“I think you’re amazing.” I said and I hoped he could see the sincerity in my eyes. He wanted to look away, either out of shame or embarrassment, I don’t know which but I didn’t let him. “I mean it. I think you’re amazing. Not just because of what you are but who you are. You're brave and you’re resilient and strong not just physically but emotionally too. I think you’re beautiful… and not just on the outside.”

“Aww! You really think I’m pretty?” he was teasing me now. Trying to deflect and lighten the mood. I let him.

“You know you’re gorgeous.” I answered back, letting go of his hair so I could tickle him in the ribs softly. He tried to escape the assault but craning his body into mine for protection. His check was back on my chest, his right hand drawing circles up and down my side lazily.

“So you’re not scared?” he asked after a brief silence and he sounded small suddenly, fragile.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at least a little scared. But you didn’t scare me off or anything. I’m not going anywhere.” I reassured him, my hand back in his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp and finger combing his curls.

“Until the blood wears off at least.” he finished in a hushed voice but I wasn’t so sure.

“I don’t think I’m going anywhere after that either.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed reading about Timmy and his origin story. I tried to keep it as concise as possible but a lot happens in 125 years and I had to set up some plot twists for coming chapters. 
> 
> Thanks for taking the time to read it and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> xoxo


	5. Taste me, drink my soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The days that follow Timmy sharing his life story with Armie are spent in much the same fashion as the day Armie found himself coming back to him: in bed, fucking, talking, getting to know each other. But when Timmy is called to a meeting with the wolf pack to discuss what happened in the club the night he saved Armie, Armie finds himself having to deal with the separation effects of the blood bind all over again. Following Timmy's suggestion that he should stick close to Charlie to lessen the effects, they spend an evening together, hanging out, swimming in the building pool while Charlie provides new perspective on their lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long for me to post. My attention has been on Timmy's Ass and Armie's Thighs (literally!!) 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter.

[](https://ibb.co/R7VwJqH)  
The days that followed were spent in much the same fashion as the day I found myself coming back to him: in bed, fucking, talking, getting to know each other. Once in a while we would emerge from the bubble we’d created in Timmy’s room for food; he might not need it but I did. We had taken to having breakfast in bed, mostly because Charlie had been leaving us grab and go plates by our door. Lunch was a quick bite eaten on the edge of the counter, grazing the leftovers of the previous night’s meal and dinner was eaten as ‘a family’ at Charlie’s insistence. 

We all cooked together, though Florence would inevitably chase us out of the kitchen because Timmy and I couldn't keep our hands off of each other and that was unsanitary apparently.

“Here!” she had said one night, slapping a wooden spoon in my hand before directing me to a pot where a luscious looking sauce was in the making. “Do you think you can stir this while his tongue is down your throat? I don’t want it to stick.” Apparently I could; I had always been good at multitasking.

Flo had little appreciation of that particular skill set given the tone with which she had made her request. I think the constant public displays of lust were starting to annoy her. Charlie on the other hand seemed to think it was adorable and she was quick to quell Flo’s irritation with a gentle smile and a look. Grudgingly, Flo softened at Charlie’s silent warning and held her tongue.

On an afternoon we’d decided to leave our little cocoon and join the girls in the living room, Timmy had wanted to pick what we were going to watch and immediately this decision was met with melodramatic eyerolls and exaggerated groans. 

“He inevitably chooses something Old Hollywood.” Charlie had whined, with her head thrown back in exasperation. “Always with the black and white, where everyone speaks with that fake mid-atlantic accent and where breathy starlets are all doe-eyed and get kissed by leading men who don’t seem to know that they can use their tongue.” Flo had added, finishing Charlie’s sentence.

“It’s romantic.” Timmy had insisted, looking at me for support and although I loved the classics as much as the next guy, I ended up siding with the girls who were on an 80s kick. Charlie had been making her way through the two Coreys filmography and decided on License to Drive. “Are you serious? It’s rated 17% on Rotten Tomatoes. I didn’t even bother seeing it in theaters when it actually came out because the reviews were so bad.”

Timmy showed me the Rotten Tomato listing he’d pulled up on his cellphone, probably hoping I would change my mind and tell the girls we should watch Casablanca or something but I was too busy doing math in my head. I’d noticed the 1988 release date in the movie’s description and I wasn’t able to help myself. I calculated quickly. I was two years old when that movie came out. When I was two he was… ninety-three. Practically a centenarian. A really old dude who looked a decade younger than I was now. This was more than I was ready to process so I ignored it, pushing it to the back of my mind.

“At least she’s not making us watch The Lost Boys again.” Flo said and she and Timmy both chuckled. 

“Keifer Sutherland was hot as fuck with fangs, ok!” Charlie insisted which just made them laugh more. “Right Armie?” 

Charlie was looking to me for validation so I nodded, my protective instinct kicking in because for whatever reason I didn’t like that they were ganging up on her and I was going to restore the balance whether I agreed or not. 

“Ha!” Charlie jeered, sticking her tongue out at them before reaching up onto tiptoes with her arms up in the air looking like a child again. “You deserve a hug and kiss for that, Nana.” 

Charlie and I were making a show of our new alliance when a slender foot was placed against my hip and nudged me gently. I turned to look at Timmy who was sprawled out on the couch and my knees almost buckled at the sight of him. He was looking at me mischievously, mouth open, his nose wrinkling and his left eye crinkled in a cocky wink, as he rubbed his tongue over a partially extended canine; the sight of which made my cock twitch with great interest. I looked away quickly and I swear I heard him snickered, satisfied. 

“So who do you think was hotter?” I asked Charlie to take my mind off the tightening in my joggers. “Corey Haim or Corey Feldman?”

“Corey Feldman, obviously.” she answered as though it was a ridiculous question and she was immediately attacked by a barrage of WHATs and NOs and CHARLIEs that I could not protect her from this time; because obviously Corey Haim was the superior Corey.

Timmy was right. The movie was pretty terrible. Could we really be blamed for getting distracted? The girls had pulled cushions and blankets onto the floor and had made themselves a bed on which to cuddle to watch the movie, which meant Timmy and I had the couch to ourselves. We had started out respectably enough, sitting close but side by side. Eventually the barely there distance between us evaporated. First I had put an arm around his shoulders and pulled him into my side. Then he had thrown a leg over mine and I had started to unconsciously slide my hand up and down his thigh. Eventually neither of us were paying attention to the screen, too busy actively searching for each other's tonsils. 

“Could you maybe get a room?” Flo had snapped mid-movie when she had gotten up to refill Charlie’s drink and saw that Timmy had crawled onto my lap and was busy mashing his hips into mine. “Nobody needs to see that.” 

Again, Charlie shot her a warning look.

I’ve said it before, but I loved the way they were with each other. How they completed each other's sentences. How they were always touching if they were close. How Flo calmed Charlie’s exuberance and how Charlie had a way of softening Flo’s prickly edges. Charlie was quirky and had no filter while Flo was contained and commanding despite her size. They weren’t opposites, they were complementary and I envied them their simbiosis. 

But Timmy and I’s overt displays had clearly started to grate on Flo’s nerves and the calm exterior was starting to crack. She was used to dealing with Charlie’s brazenness and she could settle her easily by simply placing a hand on her thigh or her shoulder. A look was usually enough to quiet Charlie given how easily she submitted to Flo. It was interesting the reverse could also apply. My observations would clearly not be welcomed at the moment however given Flo’s tone, so I kept them to myself. 

We watched the rest of the movie without incident and once it was over, Timmy and I retreated back to the privacy of his room where we could pick up where we’d left off on the couch. Tensions had receded by the time we emerged - showered and dressed and looking presentable for dinner, which given the positions and level of exertion we’d found ourselves in about an hour earlier, was worth noting - and Florence had already gotten most of the dinner prep done and the roast was already in the oven. 

I helped Charlie set the table while Timmy made some pre-dinner drinks and Flo finished off the blackberry sauce she wanted to serve with the beef. As we sat and ate, talking animatedly about this and that, laughing at each other's jokes and exchanging teasing banter the way only people who genuinely liked each other could do, I was struck by how easy it all was. How seamlessly I seemed to fit into their little family and how natural it felt; and I found myself wondering how much of that was the blood bind and how much of it was just… us. 

It had been a long time since I had been an ‘us’. I had friends of course - work colleagues mostly - and family and parents that loved me, but this was different. I’d never wanted the traditional type of relationship. The white picket fence with 2.5 children and a dog. I had a lucrative career that afforded me nice things and access to a plethora of beautiful people to spend my time with and I couldn’t see myself no longer wanting these things. My last boyfriend had very much wanted the proverbial American dream lifestyle and inevitably we had drifted apart. I just couldn’t see myself as a family man. Or whatever traditionalist ideal being a family man evoked. 

But sitting here, watching them so effortlessly just ‘be’, I felt very much complete and assumed this was what it felt like to have a family of your own. That sense of belonging and responsibility for people other than yourself that came with being an US and no longer just a ME. Which was absurd; because I had known these people for less than three days. But still they felt like they were mine and I was theirs. I felt a sudden sense of loss at the prospect of leaving them when the effects of the blood bind had gone away.

“Everything ok?” Timmy asked, the back of his hand gently stroking my cheek. I nodded and smiled at him, not quite able to make the lump in my throat completely disappear.

I had offered to do the clean-up since Flo had done all the cooking herself and I was busy filling the dishwasher when Timmy brought in the last of the wine glasses from the dining room. He leaned against the counter, on the other side of the machine and watched as I scraped the plates over the garbage disposal and then placed them neatly into the washing rack.

“Flo and I need to go out for a couple of hours.” he said, nonchalantly, as though this was something we’d previously discussed. We hadn’t. My initial reaction was to say ‘ok, I’ll go with you.’ but there was something in the way he had said it that told me he wasn’t asking for company, so instead I just nodded, the smile I offered probably looking more strained than I wanted it to. “One of the New York wolfpack leaders asked for a meeting because of what happened at the club the other day. Flo is going to come with me to mediate. And I’m going to stop at the Vampire Lounge on the way back.” he added, not that he had to justify where he was going but I could tell he wanted me to know.

“Are you in trouble because of what you had to do to save me?” I asked, concerned for his safety now and feeling guilty for having been the one to put him in that situation, but he shook his head.

“No, not at all.” he reassured, closing the dishwasher door for me and crossing the few feet of distance that separated us so he could wrap his arms around my waist. “The wolves don’t give a shit if vampires kill each other. In fact they’re more than happy for us to do so. The scene was a little messy that’s all and there are a lot of wolves in the NYPD. They just want to make sure things like that are handled more discreetly in the future.”

“So you are in trouble.” I stated, my voice thick with concern and a sudden need to protect him bubbled in my chest. Clearly he did not need me to take care of him given what he was but the knowledge of this did nothing to change how much I wanted to protect him from whatever threat there might be.

“Look, the wolves don’t dictate what I do or don’t do.” He said adamantly. “This is just a courtesy meeting. I’m just going to let them know why it happened and that things are under control. Flo will be there with me so…” 

“So your attitude stays in check." Flo interrupted, walking into the kitchen with what was left of the roast. She and Timmy exchanged a knowing look and they both chuckled. Despite their light-hearted attitude toward the issue, there was an underlying tension to the situation they couldn’t quite hide and it made me uneasy. “Don’t worry Armie. I’ll make sure he comes home in one piece.” 

When we were alone again, a silence had settled between us that for the first time since I had come back to the apartment, was just on the other side of comfortable. Timmy was clearly trying to distract me by nuzzling my neck and grazing his teeth against my jaw but now that I had processed the information that Timmy was going to have to go and meet with the wolf leaders because of me, something else was nagging at me. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked finally, a sigh obvious as he exhaled and I hated that I was making him feel frustrated or annoyed.

“Nothing. I just…” I hesitated because I didn’t think I should say what was on my mind but I also didn’t think I'd be able to just ignore it. “You said you were going to stop at Vampire Lounge on your way back. That’s the club where you feed right?” Timmy mmhmm-ed against my throat and the coolness of his breath against my skin made me shiver. “I don’t want to be presumptuous or anything, but I was just wondering why you won’t drink from me if you need to feed?”

I hadn’t even realised this was bothering me until I’d said it. But it did. Which was weird and confusing because why should I even want that? I had no real recollection of what had happened to me the night Timmy had saved me from Sven and Svi, but based on what Timmy had shown me, it hadn’t been pleasant. In fact it had been rather painful. But the thing is, I knew that with Timmy I was safe and it would be different. I had no fear and in fact, I had an almost visceral need to be his in all ways possible… including this one. 

Yet, despite making a point of teasing me with the prospect, he’d never actually bitten me. Not really. He’d done so playfully but had never pierced the skin or even used his fangs and somehow that made me feel inadequate. Like he thought I was too weak to take it or worse, that that wasn’t something he wanted to share with me. 

“It’s not that I don’t want to. I do.” He said, pulling away from me so he could look at me as he spoke. “But I’m not going to until the effects of the blood bind wears off. When you allow me to bite you, I want to know that it's not something you think you want just because my blood is in your system. There’s a difference between feeding, which is what I need to go do tonight, and drinking someone’s blood to feel close to them. When I drink from you, if you ever allow me to, I want it to be special.” 

I didn’t know what to say to that. Because I appreciated the chivalry and the concern for my feelings and all that; but I didn’t need the blood bind to wear off to know I wanted him to drink from me. In fact I knew intuitively, the way you know you’ve met the one, that I wanted to share this with him. That he was what had been missing from my life, that his presence in it gave it meaning and that me giving myself to him in that way would sanctify our union. And I wanted it to happen sooner rather than later. Because what if when the blood bind wore off, Timmy was the one who would be done with me.

“Woah. Slow down.” Timmy said looking almost dazed and he had to grip my arms to steady himself and panic bubbled in my chest suddenly. Had I said all that outloud? Or was the blood bind so strong he could actually feel the chaos of emotions going on inside me at the moment? “I don’t know what's going on in that head of yours but it’s making me dizzy.”

“I’m sorry! I…” Again, I didn’t know what to say. “I just… I feel silly. I’m sorry. It’s fine. I’m fine.” 

“Don’t do that. It’s ok if you’re not fine. I want you to be able to talk to me about these things.” Timmy said, looking up at me and there was such sweetness in his eyes it made me feel worse and better at the same time. And although I didn’t know how to verbalize it, I wanted nothing more than to talk to him… about anything. But then Flo was back in the kitchen, telling him they were going to be late. He nodded at her and she left again, leaving us alone once more. Timmy leaned against me, his forehead pressed to the spot right below the hollow of my neck, his hands slipping into the back pockets of my jeans. “I have to go right now. I’ll only be a few hours. Are you going to be ok until I get back?” I hummed a yes. “The blood bind is still pretty strong so you might be a bit uncomfortable while I’m gone.”

“I think I can manage a few hours without you.” I said with a cockiness I didn’t quite feel and though he looked skeptical, Timmy pretended like he believed me.

He kissed me one last time, standing on tiptoes and neck stretched as far as it could go, straining to reach my lips. I was being difficult and I knew it but I couldn’t help it.

“Shit! I almost forgot.” He said after he’d pulled away and before I could say ‘what?’ he was screaming Charlie’s name.

I watched as Timmy grabbed a shooter from the cupboard close to my head and set it on the counter before bringing the side of his hand to his mouth and biting into it. 

“Dude, what the fuck?” I said, stunned, watching as an angry looking wound dripped thick dark red blood into the shot glass. 

“This isn’t for you.” Timmy said, making a fist over and over to make the blood flow faster. 

Charlie sauntered in a few seconds later, hand in hand with Florence, and seeing the scene before her rolled her eyes and pouted.

“Oh come on, Poppie!” she said, exasperatedly, looking to Flo for support but not getting it. In fact Flo nudged her chin in the direction of the shot glass with an expectant look on her stern face. “This is ridiculous. You’ll only be gone a few hours and Armie is here with me. Don’t you trust me?” 

Seeing as how neither Timmy or Flo were going to back down, Charlie grabbed the shooter and downed it like it was a shot of whisky, sticking her tongue out once she had swallowed. It was a grotesque display of defiance, her tongue and teeth still coated with Timmy’s blood. Timmy just shook his head and sighed, looking as exasperated as she’d sounded a minute earlier. I had no idea what was going on but I was confused as hell. Wouldn’t giving Charlie his blood cause her to be bound to him? And wouldn’t she… have visions! Which… I mean, I'm as open-minded as the next guy but umm... Awkward! Actually, awkward wasn’t the right word. Fucked up. There. That’s it. It was fucked up. But as nobody was commenting on this fact, I kept my mouth shut.

Charlie and I accompanied Flo and Timmy to the front door and watched as they headed to the elevator. 

“Stick close to Charlie it will help with the blood bind effects.” Timmy said before walking out, kissing me on the lips and squeezing my hand affectionately. “And you,” he said addressing Charlie, his tone both paternal and pleading. “Be good.”

“Honestly! It’s like they think I’m a child.” Charlie said huffing with frustration, once the door was closed and we were alone.

There was a brief awkward silence that settled between us and I shoved my hands in my pockets, looking around aimlessly, unsure of what to do or say next. The tightening in my stomach was back because of the growing distance between Timmy and I; and I didn’t know what to do about it other than stick close to Charlie as Timmy has instructed. God, I hoped her presence would keep the visions at bay. Otherwise things were about to get rather uncomfortable.

“So! What should we do now?” I asked, wondering if she felt the pulling from the blood bind too. 

“I know Nana,” she said after thinking a few seconds, excitement now lighting up her pretty face. She looked like Timmy when her eyes sparkled like that and suddenly I didn’t even care that she was calling me Nana. “Let’s go swimming.”  
  


* * *

Ten minutes later we were taking the elevator down to the basement where the building gym and pool were located. I looked ridiculous wearing a t-shirt, a towel around my waist over my swimsuit and my running shoes because I couldn’t find a bathrobe that fit me and the girls hadn’t packed my flipflops when they’d gone to my apartment to get my clothes for the week. 

“Good evening Mrs. Clumpsky.” Charlie said when an older woman got on on the 4th floor and pressed the ground floor button.

“Good evening my dear.” Mrs. Clumpsky answered before looking at our attire and frowning. “The pool closes at 8 p.m. you know Charlotte.” She added, looking from Charlie to me and back to Charlie, lips pursed.

“Oh I know Mrs. Clumpsky. We’re just taking an elevator ride.” Charlie said sheepishly, which made Mrs. Clumpsky’s lips tighten even more. She looked as though she’d sucked on a lemon.

“Charlie, is the pool closed and if so why am I dressed like an idiot?” I asked her when Mrs. Clumpsky got off and we were alone in the carriage again. In response Charlie slipped her hand inside the pocket of her bathrobe and pulled out a single key on a plain key ring that she made twirl on her index finger, looking very proud of herself. “Of course you have a key!” I said shaking my head but I was unable to hide the smile creeping on my lips. “Did you steal that or did someone give it to you?” I had to bite the inside of my cheek not to laugh when in response Charlie shrugged coyly and started to giggle. She was something else… In the best possible way.

Though the pool closed at 8pm, the gym was open 24hrs so we had to sneak past a few tenants working out at the cardio station. Charlie made me stick close to the wall to avoid the security cameras as she hastily unlocked the door that led to the pool area. There weren’t any cameras in the actual pool area she’d told me, because old ladies like Mrs. Clumpsky didn’t want the security guards checking them out in their almost-birthday suits when they did their bi-weekly aquarobics classes. 

Once we were inside she flipped a switch and soft recessed wall sconces lit up the space. I was shocked by the beauty and opulence of it. It was all stone and marble and roman looking columns and furniture. The water was dark blue and seemed to be sparkling with thousands of stars at its bottom. I quickly realized it was actually a reflection of the ceiling which had been decorated to look like the night’s sky with LED lights made to look like constellations. 

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Charlie asked me as she took off her bathrobe and placed it on a lounge chair. I didn’t have time to answer before she was diving into the deep end, resurfacing only once she’d reach the opposite end. “Come on Nana get in. The water’s warm.”

I did a few laps while Charlie paddled and starfished around me, floating on her back to stare at the ceiling, her long brown hair floating around her like jellyfish tendrils. 

“Feel better?” she asked after I came to tread water close to her. “The water helps doesn’t it? It’s like it creates a barrier somehow and you don’t feel the pulling so much when he’s not here.” 

I hummed a yes realizing that she was right, the effects of the blood bind, though still present, were much less intense than they had been before we had jumped in the water. Maybe it was a psychosomatic reaction or simply that weightlessness lessened the pulling sensation but either way, it was nice. I was glad she’d suggested it.

“Does he give you his blood often?” I asked eventually, because the question had been nagging at me since I’d see her drink down the shooter earlier and although I kept telling myself it wasn’t any of my business, I was too curious - and shocked… weirded out even - to not ask.

“A few times a week. When he goes out mostly and we're going to be apart for a while.”

“But doesn’t it give you visions?” I pressed, paddling after her because she’d started a delicate breaststroke toward the shallow end.

“Sometimes. They’re worse when you fight the pull. Why?” She answered once she’d reached the stairs and I watched her get out of the water to get some pool noodles from a storage unit, throwing me one before coming back in.

“Isn’t that weird… cause he’s your… cause you’re related?” 

“Armie!” She scoffed, aghast, and I couldn’t quite tell if she was mocking me or not. "What kind of visions do you think I have?” 

“I don’t know. Mine are… intimate. Yours aren’t?” My face was on fire suddenly.

“Eww, no!” She burst out laughing, looking appropriately repulsed, and it took her a few seconds to calm herself enough to clarify. “I mean, they are in the sense that I long for him in ways that are personal to me. I feel him tucking me into bed or I feel him scooping me up so we can dance together like in those old movies he likes so much. Sometimes we’re walking down old cobblestone streets in Europe and he’s telling me all these historical facts that don’t appear in history books and he’s holding my hand so tight and I know he’s never gonna let go. Mostly I just miss him. I miss him so much it hurts and being safe in his arms becomes the only thing I can think about.”

“Oh! Ummm… I see other things.” I said sheepishly and she laughed again. I loved the sound of it. I couldn’t tell if it was that she was Timmy’s or that she reminded me of him but the more time I spent with her, the more I liked her.

“I bet you do!” she answered, wiggling her eyebrows knowingly and I ducked my head under water for a few seconds so she wouldn't see me blush harder.

“Why does he do it? Maintain the blood bind, I mean.” I asked when I popped back up, draping my arms over my noodle and tucking it under my armpits so I could float without treading water. 

“Tracking device!? It’s a long story.” she tried to dismiss at first but seeing as how I was truly interested, she shared her story with me. “When I was little I ran away a lot. We moved around all the time. Every few months a new city and I was desperate for some stability. Friends. I ran off so often that he started giving me a few drops of his blood every morning so he could find me when I ran. I didn’t understand at the time why we had to stay hidden. I just desperately wanted to be normal. Or get as close to normal as I could given the circumstances.”

“You? Normal?” I couldn’t help myself.

“Shut up! I’m quirky. It’s cute!” she retorted, pushing a wave of water at me, but she was laughing again. “Eventually he agreed and moved us back here. The first few years were great. We moved into this building and Poppie had the apartment remodeled. I was still homeschooled obviously but with tutors who came three times a week. I had friends, sort of. Two little girls that lived on the 8th floor. They were younger than me but Poppie would organize play dates for us in the park once in a while and he’d take us places. Like museums and stuff like that. But eventually I became restless and I wanted more. I think I was 15 when I started running away again. I felt trapped, I resented the way he was keeping me locked up like I was Rapunzel kept hidden away in her tower.” 

“He had his reasons for doing it though.” I don’t know why I was defending him to her but I was. I didn’t like thinking that she had resented him at some point.

“I know that, now. I kind of knew it then too. But I didn’t understand. Not really. Poppie had told me some things, but not everything. I think he didn’t want to scare me. And I was a hormonal teenager who had discovered boys. I thought he just didn’t want me to have nice things so to speak.” 

“You thought he was keeping you locked up in your Manhattan Upper East Side apartment that he filled with all the things you love because he didn’t want you to be with boys?” The ridiculousness of it was almost laughable.

“I was FIFTEEN! And really? You’re going to judge me Mr. I can’t keep it in my pants around a vampire? People do weird shit in weird situations.” Seeing as how I had nothing to say to that, she kept going. “So… As I was saying, by the time I was 17, the running away kind of became more like sneaking out. I’d wait ‘til he was asleep - which, you know he doesn’t need to sleep right? Not like us anyway. He can get away with sleeping a few hours every few nights if he needs too so it's not like I did it all that often - but i’d wait ‘til he was asleep and I’d sneak out.”

“What would you do when you snuck out like that?” 

“Guys I met online.” She’d meant for it to be a bit shocking and her answer got the desired response. I looked at her with my mouth and eyes wide open, the telltale mask of disbelief. “Oh, don’t be such a prude, Nana.”

“I’m surprised all he did was make you drink his blood. I’d have tied you to your bed. What’s the matter with you going out to meet strange men you find on the internet?” I asked sternly, the paternal protectiveness the blood bind made me feel for her flaring up again.

“Like you don’t have a Grindr profile. Oh wait, you DO have a Grindr profile. Flo and I looked it up. So clearly you meet with strange men from the internet too. You should lose the headshots by the way, they make you look pompous. Stick to shirtless pics. They work for you.”

“Thanks I’ll keep that in mind.” I said sarcastically with a mildly irked look on my face. She ignored this and kept going.

“So one night I snuck out to meet this guy who turned out to be a werewolf, which I obviously didn’t know at the time. And of course that’s the night Poppie realized I had snuck out and came to find me. His reaction was… mildly excessive let’s say!” 

“Because of what happened to your mother, no doubt.”

“He told you about that?” she asked, and her voice had gone soft, quiet and I wanted to gather her up in my arms to hug her, protect her from this veil of sadness that darkened her eyes suddenly; but before I could she shook it off and bubbly Charlie was back. “Well, then you have an idea how he might have reacted. Caleb, that’s the wolf’s name, hadn’t done anything wrong. He was just a boy. Barely 18, just turned probably. And he had been perfectly nice to me. But all Poppie saw was him pinning me to an alley wall and he thought he was hurting me. Things happened really quickly. I managed to stop Poppie from doing any real damage and once he was let go, Caleb ran away and straight to his pack.”

“What did he tell them?”

“Lies. Misconceptions. Either way, Poppie was exposed. I had exposed him. Werewolves would be looking for him. But I still didn’t get it. He wanted to leave, I didn’t. I was being selfish. He should have just left me, I think I even wanted him to to some degree. I thought I was old enough to take care of myself and I’d be able to have a better life if he wasn’t in it. I said some pretty terrible things to him that night. Things I’ll never be able to take back. But despite that he didn’t leave. Because he didn’t want to leave me. Needless to say that after that though, he didn’t let me out of his sight. It’s only after Flo and I began dating that he eased up a bit.”

We floated around in silence for a bit while I tried to process all this new information. In the last two days I had learned a lot of things about Timmy, about vampires and werewolves and now Charlie’s story was giving me a new insight that I wanted to properly take in.

“How did you and Flo meet?” I asked, to break this heavy silence that had settled between us.

“I’m getting to that.” She said with a smile. “After what happened with Caleb, Poppie kind of went mental for a few weeks. He never left the apartment unless it was to feed and even then, he’d go to and from the Vampire Lounge and that’s it. He was always looking over his shoulder and he never let me go out anymore, even with him. He wanted to make sure nobody could trace him back to this apartment or to me. About six months later, I was going completely stir crazy which was driving him crazy, so in a moment of weakness, he agreed to take me to see a new exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. We stopped at a cafe on the way home and Flo was there, performing. Do you believe in love at first sight?”

“I don’t know.” The question had caught me off guard. My initial reaction was to say ‘no, of course not’. But something stopped me. Because although I had never experienced it - how i had felt first seeing Timmy a few days ago didn’t count, that was the effects of the blood bind - if someone could prove to me that it was in fact a thing, it was Charlie and Flo. 

“Well I was in love with Flo, from the moment I saw her. But before I could approach her, Poppie dragged me out of there and rushed me home. He’d sensed what she was and obviously there was no way he was going to allow me anywhere near a wolf. He didn’t really get the internet at the time. Still doesn’t really. Such a grandpa! But anyway, he didn’t count on the fact that the first thing I did when I got home was look her up. I found her youtube channel and her instagram profile and sent her a message. I’d say I was surprised when she responded but that would be a lie. I didn’t give her much choice honestly. I went after her with everything I had. We talked online and on the phone for over a year before she asked me to come see her play. She had a gig with her band at one of the clubs downtown and said she’d put my name on the list. Obviously, I knew Poppie would say no so I snuck out. It was the first time in almost 2 years I’d done it.”

“Didn’t he sense it?” Surely he must have, if she was drinking his blood every day.

“No. Because we never left the apartment, he’d started only giving me his blood a few times a week. I deliberately skipped the last dose, pretending to drink it but spitting it out when he wasn’t looking. So the bind wasn’t as strong.”

“Right!” I was trying very hard not to chastise her again. “So you went to the club and then what?”

“The club was small but it was packed. When I gave my name at the front I was escorted by a bouncer to the backstage area where Flo was waiting for me. The first thing she did was kiss me.” Charlie smiled fondly at the memory, her bottom lip tucked between her teeth in the same way Timmy did when he was shy or turned on. “She was talking to someone but when she saw me she just stopped, walked up to me and kissed me. Hard. Like she was claiming me. Making sure everyone in the room knew I was hers. Obviously people noticed. I think that’s when he saw me. Caleb. I didn’t recognize him. But he recognized me. He’s actually Flo’s second cousin or something. They’re in the same pack and he helps her band set up sometimes. He told some other wolves about me and came up with this plan to grab me I guess. They waited until Flo was on stage. She didn’t know they were going to do it and only realized I was gone after she left the stage. She thought I’d just run off. It took her a while to put two and two together. She’d heard that some vampire had beaten Caleb up pretty badly over a human but she had no idea that human was me. It was only when she heard Caleb talking to someone at the bar that she figured it out.” 

“Why did they take you?” 

“They wanted to use me to lure Poppie out so they could kill him because of the whole vampire-werewolf war nonsense.” she said, sounding both angry and dejected at the same time. I refused to cooperate obviously. I got pretty roughed up before Flo managed to get to me. When the elders in her pack wouldn’t let me go she did the only thing she could think of and she came to find Poppie. That took a while too because I'd never actually told her where I lived; just in which building. So she had to convince the doorman to call up and tell Poppie I was in danger. I was pretty out of it so i don’t remember much. I think to some degree Caleb had exaggerated his encounter with Poppie in the alley and made it seem like he was trying to turn me. Poppie’s one of the last vampires in New York to not have been affected by the virus you know. So theoretically he could turn someone. But once it was made clear that he hadn't been trying to turn me at all, that I was his great-great-granddaughter and he was just trying to protect me over a perceived threat, things calmed down slightly. Flo managed to negotiate a deal between Poppie and the wolves and they let us go.”

“What are the terms of the agreement?” I wanted to know. 

“Poppie stays out of the werewolves’ business. Promises not to retaliate for what they did to me. And as long as he keeps his nose clean, doesn’t turn anyone or kill anyone, they leave us alone.”

It was pretty straightforward as far as agreements went. 

“And how does Flo fit in now. I can’t imagine the elders or whatever are too happy that she fraternises with vampires and is dating a vampire’s granddaughter.”

“They aren’t particularly.” Charlie said with a shrug, as though how others felt about her relationship with the woman she loved was of little or no concern to her. “Flo disagrees with how the wolves took advantage of the virus to essentially perform a genocide on the vampire population and she’s very vocal about it. The only reason she gets away with it is because of her position in the pack.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“She’s a Gamma. Her uncle, who also happens to be her godfather, is the pack Alpha and her father is his Beta. So whether or not the others like it, as long as the pack leaders accept her choices the rest of the pack have to go with it.”

“This is all so…” I started but didn’t finish because I didn’t know what it was. Too much. Intense. Scary. Impossible.

“Fucked up?” she offered helpfully and I nodded.

“Yeah. I think that sums it up adequately.” I said and we both laughed.

It was well past midnight when we snuck out of the basement and back up to the apartment. My hands and feet were all wrinkled and pruney and I smelled like chlorine but my body felt satisfyingly heavy. The pull in my stomach was back though.

“Do you think they’ll be home soon?” I asked Charlie, who had slumped on the couch and was starting to dose after we’d both gone to change and met back up in the living room. 

“I can text them and find out if you want.” she offered and though I desperately wanted to say yes, I shook my head no. I didn’t want Timmy to think I was desperate. Even if I clearly was. 

I sat next to Charlie and she curled up into my side, her head on my shoulder, an arm slung around my waist. Immediately the pull dulled a little and I relaxed. 

“Are you tired? Do you want me to put you to bed?” I realized it was odd to be asking a grown woman I’d just recently met if she wanted me to put her to bed but it didn’t feel weird at all in that moment, because it was Charlie. She shook her head and burrowed deeper into my side. I covered her with a throw blanket and stretched my legs out to rest my feet on the coffee table. Within minutes, we were both asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you as usual to Lostcol who talks through all this with me as I have the memory of a goldfish. And who also edits me and makes sure that when Armie pops out of the water he doesn't in fact poop out of the water!


	6. With a blue moon on the rise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Timmy returns from his meeting with the Manhattan wolf pack with some bad news. Telling Charlie that they have to go into lockdown down isn't going to be easy. Of course, with a blue moon rising and the effects it had on the supernatural, it's going to be even more difficult. As tensions rise and the blood bind doesn't seem to be lessening, it's going to be a difficult few days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't usually feel like it's necessary to specify that this is FICTION (vampires and werewolves were pretty self-explanatory in that regard I felt) or put trigger warning because (in my opinion) what happens in this story is very consensual and does not register as violence in my books.
> 
> But, considering what's been circulating on social media since the weekend, I think I don't have a choice simply because I do not wish for anyone reading this to be triggered or have issues.
> 
> So here goes:  
> This is a vampire story. There is biting and blood drinking involved.  
> In this AU, both Timmy and Armie like being restrained, man-handled, bitten, choked to some degree and/or marked etc.  
> Armie has a tendency to be the more dominant lover.  
> This story also has werewolves in it. Flo, as one of the main characters, is often described as being dominant in her relationship with Charlie. Charlie often refers to enjoying being restrained, spanked, bruised, bitten etc. She likes to sit at Flo's feet.
> 
> If any of these things aren't for you, I totally understand.

[](https://ibb.co/svnr6pp)

I was first woken up by Charlie moving against my side and I tightened my arm around her waist to calm her. She continued to jostle which pulled me further into consciousness and when I opened my eyes, I realized Timmy was home and trying to slip his arms around Charlie’s back and under her knees to pick her up.

“Hey!” I said groggily and he smiled, green eyes vibrant and twinkling even in the pallid grey somberness of the room.

“Hey!” he answered back, leaning over Charlie so he could kiss me softly, lingering momentarily, not deepening the kiss, just staying close, our foreheads touching and his breath warm on my lips. Immediately, the pull of longing that had left my stomach now that he had come home, was replaced by an intrinsic wanting. He kissed me again and then pulled away faster than my lips could give chase. “I’m gonna get her to bed and I’ll be right back.” 

“I can do it.” I offered, my sleep-logged body protesting silently at the prospect. Though I knew he was more than strong enough to pick her up, my rational mind still had a hard time accepting that it was possible. But before I could move, he was already pulling her out of my arms and off the couch. I watched as he carried her out of the room, her body cradled without effort against his slight chest; carrying her like she wasn’t a grown woman who weighed close to, if not the same as he did. There were things that I didn’t think I’d ever get used to. His strength versus the size of him being one of them.

“Night, Nana!” Charlie mumbled, never opening her eyes, her arms slung loosely around his neck and her cheek resting on his shoulder.

I dozed off again while he was off putting Charlie to bed and this time, I was woken up by the sound of insistent whispers coming from just outside the living room. I couldn’t hear what they were discussing, but I recognized Flo’s low gravel alongside Timmy’s baritone. They sounded serious. I strained to make out what they were saying but only managed to hear a word here and there; nothing I could string into a coherent sentence. I tried to ignore it, vacillating in and out of consciousness, lulled by the back and forth of the whispers.

“I see Charlie took you to the pool.” Timmy said, waking me up again. He was straddling my thighs, bum scooched back toward my knees so he could easily bring his face down to my neck and bury his nose in the still damp hair at my nape. I groped his thighs, the jeans he was wearing pulling tight against the muscles, making them feel taut and warm under my fingers. 

“How’d the meeting go?” I asked, my body reacting to his lips and his hands but my brain allowing itself to get distracted by the worry that had begun to bloom since his return. He kissed a spot behind my ear before collapsing onto my chest in a show of tiredness I hadn’t expected. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and he nuzzled into my neck, his body curling around me like a blanket. 

“It was fine. They understand what happened and why. Like I said, they couldn’t care less about vampire on vampire attacks. As far as they’re concerned, I did them a favor by ridding New York of two filthy bloodsuckers. Their words, not mine.” He rubbed his nose against the stubble on my jaw and kissed the spot behind my ear again. It felt lazy and comfortable. I tightened my arms around his shoulders a little more, a hand cupping the back of his neck and squeezing slightly, his curls tickling the back of my hand.

“So why did they call the meeting?” I asked. There was something about him, a tension in his body despite being comfortably collapsed on me, that told me there was more to it than that.

He shrugged. It was an entire body shrug that started in his shoulders and ended with a twist of his hips. It felt despondent and somewhat exasperated despite being adorable. I played in his curls soothingly. I could tell he was hesitant to discuss whatever had happened that evening. Normally I might not have pushed given his obvious fatigue, but as this possibly had something to do with me, or if not, with what he’d had to do to save me, I wanted to know.

“There have been some unsettling rumors going around for a while now.” he said eventually. “A few of the packs in neighboring boroughs have been trying to rekindle support for a full city initiative to rid New York of its remaining vampire population. Even those who can’t sire new progeny. Word has gotten out that the Manhattan pack’s Gamma is a ‘vampire sympathiser’ and they’re putting pressure on its leaders to put a stop to it. There is even some dissent within Flo’s own pack. Lower pack members are calling for stricter rules with regard to Lupus-Vampiric associations and threatening to challenge the Alpha, Flo’s uncle, if he won't implement and enforce them.”

Timmy sagged into me even further, if that was possible. I tried to comfort him as best I could; in that helpless way you usually do when someone professes something upsetting but you’re in no position to fix it or shield them from it. I continued to rub his back and play in his curls, gliding my fingers through the ringlets from roots to ends and then again.

“What does Flo have to say about all this?” I asked, thinking surely she'd be able to talk to her father and uncle to make them understand Timmy wasn’t a bad person. “Can’t she do something?” 

“She’s not too worried about it. Clint, that’s her dad, absolutely adores Charlie and I think because of that he’s a little more open-minded where I’m concerned. Being the pack Beta, that gives him a little say in how things are going to go down.” I thought that was somewhat reassuring but then he added: “That’s not all though.”

“What then?” I asked, apprehensively. The way he had said it raised all the little hairs in the back on my neck in a sort of anxious warning. I had never heard him sound so weary. I’d seen him happy, excited, turned-on, sad… a little angry even, but never tired with worry. He wore it on his body like a staticky sweater. I stopped rubbing his back, irrationally afraid to get a shock.

“Rafie, Flo’s younger sister, is engaged to someone in one of the Brooklyn packs. He told her the Brooklyn leaders have gone against the Manhattan pack’s recommendation and put a price on my head.” Saying it out loud seemed to have released the tension he’d been carrying and I felt his muscles become pliant under my fingers. 

“What?” I said a little too loudly, the sound bouncing through the quiet of the sleeping apartment. I pushed his torso off of mine and sat up abruptly, catching him by the upper arms so he didn’t fall off my lap. “What do you mean there’s a price on your head? A price, as in, they want you dead?”

Timmy nodded and sighed simultaneously. I didn’t know what to say. I must have looked like a carpe, opening and closing my mouth repeatedly, trying to say something, anything, but nothing seemed adequate. What did you say to someone who had a bounty on their life? “Why though?” I asked finally, because it just didn’t make sense to me. He was a good man. How could people not see that just because he was different? The thought made me so angry, I couldn't contain it. “That’s fucking racist. Or… speciest or whatever the fuck you refer to you as between each other.” 

My outburst made him chuckle and it was his turn to try and soothe me, his own protective instincts kicking in. He scooted forward on my lap so there were only a few inches separating our chest and our faces. He placed his arms over my shoulders and lowered his forehead so it was pressed to mine.

“For all intents and purposes let’s go with racist just because the word speciesism makes me feel like an animal… or an alien.” There was just enough humor in his tone for me to know I hadn’t offended him, which I appreciated, but I didn't understand how he could be so calm about this.

“How are you not freaking out right now?” I asked, pulling my head back so I could look at him properly, assessing his features to make sure he wasn’t actually keeping it in for my benefit.

“Armie, people have been trying to kill me for the better part of a century. There’s no immediate danger. Nobody is getting into this building tonight. We’ve already advised security that should anyone come looking for us, the authorities are to be called immediately. Tomorrow, Flo and I will figure out how we’re going to handle this and what additional security measures we’re going to put into place until this blows over, because it always does. But it’s late and I’m kind of over thinking about this tonight.”

I knew that realistically, there was nothing I would be able to do even if a bunch of werewolves somehow showed up; but I was still worried and on high alert. Adrenaline had kicked in and there was no way I was going to fall asleep now. I huffed frustratedly but conceded, because what else could I do?

“Are you tired?” he asked me and I shook my head. Which made him smile mischievously. “Good. How about you help get my mind off of this then?” 

“What did you have in mind?” I asked with a raised eyebrow, other parts of my body twitching with interest as well. 

“I have a few ideas.” he said coyly, already pulling his shirt over his head, the pristinely smooth and pale skin of his torso shimmering almost silver in the moonlight. “Think you can be quiet?” 

I nodded and he bent down to kiss me, hands already on his waistband so he could unfasten the button and zipper of his jeans.

When I woke up yet again, it was day and it was due to an obviously annoyed Flo complaining loudly.

“Are they fucking serious?” she was asking, I assumed of Charlie because I could hear her giggling not too far away. “Nobody needs to see that. Especially first thing in the morning.” 

I was confused for a moment, wondering what they were doing in Timmy’s room and then I remembered. We’d never made it to Timmy’s room. After Timmy had stripped out of his jeans and boxers, never actually leaving my lap - which was an impressive show of limberness and determination as well being totally hot - we’d made out for a while as he rutted against my thigh, burying his face in my neck to muffle the grunts and groans he was making. Eventually he’d gotten me out of my clothes as well, faster than I could have managed myself, before he was on top of me again, gyrating and rubbing his hard cock against mine until we both came. I wasn’t sure how he managed to make fucking around like teenagers so erotic and sensual, but somehow he did. The way he could roll and undulate his hips was positively salacious and I was hard again just thinking about how he had moved under my hands. 

We had kissed for a long time after, slowly allowing drowsiness to take us as our bodies slipped and slid against each other because of the mess we’d made. I vaguely remembered repositioning us so I was lying on my back on the couch and he was lying on top of me with his legs between mine, and we’d fallen asleep this way, after he’d haphazardly covered us with the throw. 

Now that I was waking up, I could feel the dried crust of last night's pleasure itching at my stomach and my chest, as well as a chill against my legs that went all the way up to my thighs and then again on my arms. Timmy was still on top of me. Eyes still closed, I gingerly patted around to find the edge of the blanket so I could make sure everything was properly covered and instead was met only with cool smooth skin. Fuck!

“I think you’re looking for this.” came Flo’s voice, and my stomach dropped with embarrassment as I felt the folds of the throw landing on us; it must have fallen off us during the night. 

My face was on fire as I opened my eyes and tugged at the fabric that had landed messily over Timmy, to make sure his ass was no longer exposed to unwilling viewers. The movement stirred him awake as well. 

“Morning!?” I said to the girls with an apologetic grin; a greeting that only Charlie returned. Her back was to us, her arms were folded in front of her and I could tell by the way her shoulders were curved she was covering her mouth with one hand, trying to stifle giggles that her fingers couldn't contain.

“Breakfast is ready if you’re hungry.” was all Flo said before turning on her heels and dragging a still giggling Charlie out with her.

“Not one word,” Timmy warned later that morning, mostly in Charlie’s direction, when we finally joined them for breakfast, taking our usual places in the sundrenched nook. 

He had been unusually quiet in the shower we’d shared to rid ourselves of the remnants of last night's activities and now there was uncharacteristic sternness not only in his voice but in his face. Charlie wisely kept her mouth shut, despite clearly having a lot to say and her face had sullened at his injunction. The light she normally exuded was gone from her eyes as she sipped her coffee, pretending not to have been hurt by the way he’d addressed her, and I didn't like that much. Once the girls had flitted off into conversation on their side of the table I glanced at him from over the rim of my cup, questioningly, but he dismissed me as well with a faint shake of his head that made his unkempt curls sway and a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He was clearly a lot more troubled than he had let on last night.

Leaving him to his silence, I turned my attention to the girls. I realized quickly that what I had assumed to be their usual banter, was actually Charlie trying to engage Flo in conversation, who was answering perfunctorily, not even bothering to look at her. She was clearly distracted, mulling something over in her head. It was obvious she too was concerned. Finally, Charlie had had enough of being ignored. With the fieriness I’d come to expect from her, she stood abruptly and sent her empty breakfast plate sliding across the table where it fell off the edge and shattered on the floor. I jumped at the noise despite having seen her do it. 

“CHARLIE!” Both Timmy and Flo hollered, the tension in the room suddenly thick.

“Is somebody gonna tell me what the fuck is going on?” she snapped defiantly, glaring at them each in turn. 

Her hands were set firmly on her hips and vehement expectation was clear in the purse of her lips. Her foot was tapping an unnerving rhythm under the table and I wanted to put a hand on her shoulder or an arm around her waist to soothe her but I didn’t think it was my place. I watched as they both dismissed her again, Flo rolling her eyes and Timmy shaking his head dejectedly as though she were a child throwing yet another tantrum. 

I gave them a moment. Maybe the way they were reacting was simply because her request had caught them off guard and they wanted to weigh their words before answering. But seeing as how Flo had slipped out from behind the table and was now picking up the broken pieces of porcelain and Timmy was deliberately ignoring her, I realized they were in fact going to pretend like she hadn’t said anything.

“There’s a price on your great-however-many-greats-there-are-grandfather’s head.” I answered her in their place. Though my voice was calm, my insides were churning. I knew I was over-stepping, but I also felt like I knew her enough now to know that ignoring her would only make her act out even more. Besides, she had a right to know. 

“ARMIE!” Flo and Timmy hollered in unison once again. It was now my turn to be admonished. 

Ignoring them the way they had ignored her, I watched as she absorbed the information and frustration turned to concern. She looked at me, her eyes dark under knitted brows, and then to her great-great-grandfather who somehow managed to look both angry and resigned.

“What?” she asked him, her voice sounding fragile now, especially in contrast to how assertive it had been mere moments ago, and his anger faded leaving behind only a resignation that made his shoulders droop and his face age slightly.

Flo glared at me from the other side of the table, still crouched low with broken plate pieces in her hand. I shrugged my shoulders in response. I’d always been told that if you wanted someone to stop acting like a child you had to stop treating them like one, and they were both guilty of this more often than not. Granted, Charlie might have reacted a little impulsively by breaking the plate but it had had the desired effect. A few minutes later, everyone was sitting around the table again, all evidence of the broken china discarded and swept away, while Flo and Timmy took turns recounting last night’s event. 

“So what’s the plan?” Charlie asked, once they were done, all traces of vulnerability gone; or rather, hidden. She was putting on a brave face. I patted her knee gently under the table to let her know I saw her even if they didn’t. 

“Hunker down.” Timmy said with a sigh that implied ‘you’re not going to like it’. “Stay out of sight for as long as possible until the threat dies down.”

“Great. Another lockdown.” It was Charlie’s turn to sigh. It was barely mid-morning and she already sounded tired. “What about when you have to go out to feed? It’s not like you can go to the club anymore.”

“I’m ok for a few days. I fed last night. We’ll figure it out as the time comes.” He said, risking a glance in my direction but he averted his eyes immediately when he realized I was staring right at him. 

“What about the others?” she asked, eyes trained on Flo this time. “If there’s a price on your head, it’s only a matter of time before they start to come after the others again.”

“Oh come on, Charlie.” Flo replied, sounding exasperated. “Not this again. There’s nothing we can do. There aren’t that many vampires left in the city anyway. Timmy already reached out to those he could last night. The others will have to fend for themselves. There’s dissent within my own pack because they feel my dad and my uncle are being too lenient. They aren’t going...”

“Lenient? Do they really want to talk to me about leniency? Wolves murdered my mother while I was still in my crib. They ripped her to shreds and left her body like she meant nothing. Like she was nothing. She was human and they killed her anyway.” Charlie spat in a burst of anger. “Lenient? They were pretty fucking lenient with the assholes who kidnapped me and tortured me just so they could get to Poppie. They laughed while they made me scream, did you forget that? They taunted me and hurt me and made me think I was going to suffer the same fate as my mother. And what punishment did they receive? None. Barely a slap on the wrist. And now they’re hunting Poppie for sport and we’re supposed to just what… hide here like trapped foxes until they get bored again? I love you Flo, but fuck them. They’re the animals, not him.” 

Flo flinched hearing Charlie’s last statement and though she didn’t show any overt sign of emotion, it was obvious the words still hit her hard. I could only imagine how torn she probably felt. Vacillating between her loyalty to her family and the love she obviously had for Charlie. It must be difficult walking that tightrope as she tried to stay true to her own set of morals and beliefs while at the same time trying not to disappoint her father and live up to the expectations that came with being second in line to the Alpha. 

Despite this, she sat stoically and listened as Charlie directed all her hurt and her anger in her direction. By not reacting, not trying to defend or explain, not even trying to console, she was essentially allowing a space for all of Charlie’s darkness to be expelled. She was absorbing it into herself so that Charlie could be free of it. After a moment, Charlie calmed. Her fists unclenched, her shoulders dropped and the faintly perceptible vibration of her body stilled. She dropped onto the banquette, eyes trained on her fingers that were now interlaced over her lap. She was holding her breath as though this would contain the inevitable floodgates and I held mine without realizing; an empathetic reaction kind of like the urge to yawn when someone close to you does it. I tried not to stare as Flo brought a crooked finger to the underside of Charlie’s chin and turned her face so she would be forced to look at her. Still, Flo said nothing. She just looked at Charlie, eyes soft and understanding, waiting for Charlie to do or say whatever she needed to. 

Though I could only see her profile, I noticed Charlie’s bottom lip jut out a little and start to tremble. It wasn’t long before she was curled up into Flo’s side, arms tight around her waist and her face buried in her chest, just under her chin. Flo had started rocking her unconsciously, smoothing her hair out of face and wiping away tears when they came.

We all sat quietly for a while, the only sound in the apartment being that of Charlie’s staccato breaths as she tried to regain control of her emotions. Eventually Timmy caught Flo’s eye and gestured toward the door with a diagonal tilt of his head, silently asking her if we should go. She nodded softly before returning her attention to a yielding Charlie.

“I’m sorry.” I said later, when Timmy and I were alone behind closed doors. Although I stood by the belief that she had a right to know what was going on, I hadn’t expected her to react so virulently to the news. But then when she had taken me swimming last night and told me her life story, she had seemed mostly unaffected by the extremeness of it all. I now realized that maybe it hadn’t been that Timmy and Flo were hesitant to tell her what was going on but rather that they weren’t sure how to broach the subject so as not to upset her. “It wasn’t my place to say anything.”

We had retired to the library after leaving the girls in the kitchen and were now sitting on the green velvet couch we’d share on the day the blood bind had called me back to him. It had only been a few days since then and yet I felt as though I had been here a lifetime. He was writing in the journal he kept on the side table, his torso slightly twisted to the right where he was balancing the leather bound book on the arm of the couch, his left leg crossed over his right, away from me. I felt like there was a chasm between us when in fact there was only a few feet. I was no body language expert but I knew enough to know that that wasn’t a great sign. He finished the sentence he was writing, marking the page with his pen before he closed the journal and unfolded himself from the corner so he could turn toward me, placing his feet on the green velvet between us, knees close to his chest.

“We had to tell her. I think both Flo and I were trying to find the best way of doing that when you spoke up. Truth is I think we were both afraid of having to be the one to pull off the bandaid. So I guess it’s good you did it for us.”

“But you’re angry with me?” Though I had wanted it to be a statement of fact, it had come out of my mouth as more of a question, allowing for the possibility that maybe he wasn’t.

“I was.” he confirmed and my heart did a flip in my chest. 

“Was? You aren’t anymore?” 

“It was only in that initial moment.” he explained. “I was angry that you blurted it out so rashly, but then I saw the way you tried to calm her. How attuned to her you are. You were ready to step in if she needed it and I appreciate that. You really care for her, don’t you?”

“I do.” I answered immediately, because I did. Because even if it had only been a few days and even if part of it probably had to be that his blood coursed through her veins, there were just some people you felt immediately connected to in this world and I knew that what I felt for her, for them both, was genuine; even if I couldn't explain why.

“I think part of it is that I’m not used to having other people take care of her.” he professed after a few moments of introspective silence. “Since the day I took her and fled New York, it’s always been just the two of us. And it’s not just that I was a single parent. The fact that we traveled for the first ten years of her life with little to no outside interactions made us closer than most parent-child relationships ever are. Anything she needed, there was only ever me to take care of it, and it’s hard for me to step back. Letting Flo in when they started dating was really difficult - the fact that she’s a werewolf obviously didn’t help - but for the most part we’re on the same page when it comes to Charlie. So I think when you clearly disagreed with how we were handling things this morning, I took it as an affront to my parenting of her when I should have been grateful that you care enough for her to want what’s in her best interest.”

I often forgot the depth of the relationship he and Charlie had. As it was, it was difficult for my mind to comprehend that he had raised her from the time she was an infant. The fact that they looked to be of similar age, compounded by the fact that despite having been living for more than a century, he had retained the exuberance, daring and mischievousness of youth, made it difficult for logic and reason to accept that he was a father, nevermind hers. And just like it was difficult for my brain to accept this reality, I think it was equally difficult for him to accept that Charlie was no longer a child. That she was now older than he had been when he had married; and older still than his wife Camille had been when she had given birth to Chloe, Charlie’s great-grandmother.

“She’d probably tell you she isn’t a little girl anymore if you asked her.” I offered. This really wasn’t any of my business but I figured he’d never had anyone to talk to about these things and maybe he needed or wanted to. 

“I’m 125 years old.” he said with a bit of a smirk that only served to accentuate his boyish features. “She’s only 24. She’ll always be my little girl.” 

“Just so we’re clear, what were you doing when you were 24 years old?” I pressed, mirroring his impishness. 

I knew I was pushing him to think about a time he didn’t like dwelling on. A time when he’d been nursing hangovers in brothels following the death of his wife of four years, while his young daughter was being cared for by the Vanderbilts instead of him. It’s not that I wanted to remind him of this because I knew it was something he was deeply ashamed of. I just wanted to point out that when he was Charlie’s age he had been a man for a few years already. He sighed heavily and shook his head but the smirk was still there. Thank god.

“Did she put you up to this?” he asked, nudging my side with the flat of a bare foot which I caught and brought to my lap so I could massage it.

“No.” I answered truthfully, my thumbs digging into the ball of his foot which made his eyelids droop and his back arch off the arm of the couch. “I just figured if she’s going to call me Nana, I might as well act the part and reason with her overprotective Poppie on her behalf.”

“Overprotective?” he asked with mock offense, trying to pull his foot out of my hands but I didn’t let him.

“Maybe not in this case. But I’m surprised you didn’t chase Flo off with a shotgun when they started dating.” I teased and he laughed. 

“Does threatening to bite her if she didn’t immediately leave my great-great-granddaughter alone count?” he asked sheepishly, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“You did not?” I asked in disbelief, fully aware that vampire bites were lethal to werewolves. He shrugged in lieu of an answer.

“Well then, it’s a good thing I’m here now, isn’t it?” I said, matter of factly, and dragged my nail from his heel to his big toe, which made him squeal as he jerked his leg reflexively to try and escape the tickling.

Before he could remove his foot, I grabbed his ankle and pulled it toward me sharply so that he slid onto his back on the couch seat. He hadn’t expected me to do so and he gasped excitedly, his cheeks flushing with the telltale sign of arousal as I got to my knees between his thighs and lowered myself over him so I could kiss him. Immediately his body became malleable under mine. I grabbed his wrists and held them above his head against the arm of the couch, and with my other hand I grabbed his left knee and pulled it up to rest against my ribs. This gave me full access to his inner thigh which I took advantage of by pressing my pelvis into his. He shimmied his hips to meet mine, looking for friction, his cock already rock hard and straining in his joggers despite the stretch of the fabric. 

“This is coercion you understand.” he said amidst a sigh and groan. “The use of sexual manipulation to get someone to accept new terms is highly undignified.”

“Is it working though?” I asked before taking his earlobe into my mouth, which rendered his answer unintelligible.

He hadn’t only retained the appearance of youth, I thought as I nipped at his jaw, dragging my teeth over the smooth skin before soothing it with a kiss; he’d also held on to its impetuousness as proven by the way he was erratically scrambling to find any area of bare skin in which to dig in his nails, and the disregard with which he was moaning and grunting, not caring if anyone could hear us. And I hadn’t even really touched him yet. 

Remedying this immediately, I kissed a trail from his chin to his belly button, letting go of his hands only once I’d reached his lower ribs so I could divest him of the long sleeved, pink and purple tie dye t-shirt he’d put on earlier - for a 125 year old vampire he certainly liked colorful clothing, not that I was complaining - and then I resumed my explorations, my tongue lapping at hardened nipples and my teeth biting and pulling at the soft flesh of his belly, both of which made him go silent momentarily, the sounds of his moans getting caught in his throat.

I succeeded in wriggling him out of his pants with my mouth never leaving the heated skin of his waist or his hips, and once he was left with only his boxers on I mouthed at his erection through the fabric, tasting him, his hard cock already leaking and seeping through the cotton. By the time I was pulling at the elastic waistband with my teeth, he was a mess beneath me, hands fisting in my hair and pretty mouth uttering filthy words that made me even more exuberant in my attention. 

“In case I haven’t said,” he cooed when my mouth closed into a kiss over the tip of his cock, a drop of precum moistening my lips. “I think it’s a good thing you’re here now, too.”

Our self-imposed lockdown didn’t change much to our past routine other than the fact that we were suddenly all very aware that should we want to step out, we couldn’t. Because of this, the apartment quickly became claustrophobic. It’s not that we were lacking for space, it was a large apartment after all; but we seemed to continuously be in each other's hair. Or rather, Timmy and I seemed to be incapable of keeping our hands off of each other and it began to grate on certain people’s nerves.

I’ll admit we were pretty careless at times, but that’s not to say that we were the only ones to blame. For example, that first morning in the library. Flo had barged in, a question on the tip of her tongue, and found us naked on the couch - again - only this time Timmy was on his knees while I was taking him from behind.

“Jesus Christ,” she’d grumbled, stopping Charlie from entering the room. “I’m gonna need to disinfect my eyes!”

“Jesus Christ,” Timmy echoed, his head dropping between his forearms. “What do you want?”

“I want you to get a fucking room is what I want. How many times am I going to be forced to stare at your ass today?” she’d spat, her nose turned up as though she was smelling something putrid.

“And also we need your credit card number to set up the CornerShop account.” Charlie chirped from the hallway, her mood clearly lifted given the amused giggle in her tone. 

“What is happening right now?” Timmy asked, exasperated, once we were alone again. “Do they not understand the concept of knocking?” 

“Well, right now, nothing is happening. A few minutes ago you were begging me to fuck you.” I teased. “And now you aren’t.” 

“Right. Let’s get back to that, then.” he said and pounced.

The next afternoon, Timmy and I had offered to make dinner while the girls “took a nap”. Timmy sat on the counter next to me while I chopped the vegetables for the chili I’d decided to make, stealing pieces of pepper and celery from the pile, sometimes feeding me a piece while we chatted. He switched counters and sat next to me while I browned the sofrito and then the meat, now stealing kisses instead of food. Once I’d added all the tomatoes and liquids, leaving the pot to simmer on the stove, he’d pulled me between his thighs and wrapped his arms around my neck so he could kiss me ‘properly’; which apparently meant trying to find my tonsils with his tongue while one of my hands explored the inside of his pants. 

“Don’t mind me.” Charlie said, interrupting us mid ‘nghn’ and ‘don’t stop’. 

Her statement was followed by an immediate ‘OWE’ and a familiar giggle that couldn’t hide a tinge of pain. We looked up to find Charlie, eyes closed, leaning against the edge of the kitchen island with one hand while she rubbed soothing circles on her hip with the other. 

“What are you doing?” Timmy asked from over my shoulder since I had pressed into him to hide both our erections. Annoyance was clear in the way he’d posed his question.

“Don’t take that tone with me.” Charlie chastised. “I’m injured over here and it’s all your fault.” Timmy immediately softened. No pun intended.

“I’m sorry. What happened. And why is it my fault?” he asked in the overly paternal tone he sometimes used when addressing her; usually when she pouted or he was placating her. The tone was generally accompanied by obvious adoration in his eyes and a corner smile.

“Because I don’t need to see THAT.” she gestured in our vague direction with a dismissive hand. “So I was walking into the kitchen to get some water with my eyes closed and I walked right into the island. And now I’m going to have a bruise.”

“I thought you liked bruises?” I couldn’t help but tease, which made her laugh and blush prettily at the same time. Timmy however gave me a hard slap on the shoulder, that would also probably leave a bruise, and gave me an obvious ‘Dude, that’s my kid you’re talking about’ look. I rubbed the tender area and laughed much in the same way Charlie was rubbing her hip and giggling, but I let him handle the rest of the conversation.

Timmy walked to the refrigerator, pulled out one of the reusable water bottles they kept the fridge stocked with and brought it to her. Because her eyes were still closed, he tapped her lightly on the shoulder and she cracked an eye to make sure it was safe to allow a full view. 

“Thank you.” she said sheepishly, opening her eyes and taking the bottle from him.

“You gonna be ok?” he asked, pulling her into his arms and patting the spot she’d been rubbing a few seconds earlier.

“Yes, it’ll match the bite mark I have on the other side.” she said, very clear in her meaning. I laughed, Timmy groaned.

“Oh my god. Not to quote you back to yourself, but I do not need to know that.” Timmy grumbled, hiding his face against the top of her shoulder. 

Dinner that night was uneventful barring a small incident in which Charlie jokingly asked if we’d washed our hands before setting the table given what she’d walked in on, but Timmy shot that down with a warning look that had Flo rolling her eyes and looking a little pursed at the mouth.

Later we all watched a movie together. This time we allowed Timmy to choose and he surprised us all by selecting the latest Scorsese. We tried to be good. Really we did. The girls were curled up on the far left side of the sectional, Charlie lying in the fetal position and using Flo’s lap as a pillow, her arms curled around Flo’s knees. Timmy and I had stretched out in the corner, my legs crossed at the ankles in one direction and Timmy’s stretched in the other, his feet close to Charlie’s, his back resting against my side. I had wrapped my arm around his chest and he’d wrapped one of his around my thigh.

Once in a while, Timmy would turn his face toward mine and kiss me chastely or he would rub his nose against the scruff on my jaw. My fingers would trace abstract shapes over his t-shirt and sometimes I’d idly slide my hand down to his belly and then back up. If his breath hadn’t caught when I’d brought my hand to his throat so my thumb could stretch and trace the line of his jaw, we’d have probably been able to maintain decorum. But then I felt him swallow, hard, under my palm and it was too late. I squeezed a little and he tensed deliciously against me and immediately I was hard.

Out of respect for the girls we stayed for the rest of the movie, though in retrospect we probably should have just excused ourselves. Stolen demure brushes of the lips quickly turned into open-mouth kisses and what had been mere affectionate petting became Timmy trying desperately not to squirm or moan when my hand breached the collar of his shirt and slid all the way down to his hardened nipple to caress it.

We weren’t oblivious to the huffing coming from the other side of the couch but as I’ve said multiple times now, we were unable to keep our hands off of each other. As soon as the movie ended we were on our feet, and after kissing Charlie good night, Timmy practically dragged me out of there.

Things came to a head on our third day of lockdown. After breakfast, Timmy stripped his bed and headed to the laundry room, playfully whining that we were making a mess of all his high thread count sheets. I grabbed a few pairs of discarded underwear and a couple of shirts from the pile of my dirty clothes and trotted after him to throw them into the load as well so I wouldn’t run out. He had just finished switching a load of Charlie and Flo’s clothes from the washer to the dryer when I’d come in, and he was bent over the top loading machine trying to grab a stray sock from the bottom of the tub. I smacked his ass because it was too tempting not to and he jumped in surprise, banging his head on the open lid.

“Owe!” he complained but before he could turn around I dropped my dirty clothes and pressed myself to his backside, trapping him between the machine and my body, my arms forming a little cage on either side of his ribs. Resting his back against my chest and his head on my shoulder so he could see me, he added coyly: “You know you don’t need to knock me out. I’ll come willingly.” 

“Oh, will you?” I asked, nuzzling my hips into him and tilting my head to the side to make room for his tongue which was now tracing the path of a protruding vein on the side of my neck. Every nerve in my body was on fire. God, I wanted him to bite me. “And when exactly will you be coming?” 

I held my breath when his teeth grazed over my pulse point. He’d let his fangs out and I felt them, scratching my skin like little knife points. He wasn’t applying enough pressure to draw blood but it was definitely enough to leave a mark.

“That’s really up to you, isn't it?” he whispered in my ear, and everything after that became a blur of want and need.

Moments later Timmy was naked and in my arms, pressed against the laundry room wall, his arms and legs holding himself up around my shoulders and waist. I’d managed to shimmy my pants down to mid thigh and was pushing inside him when there was a knock on the door and we froze. The doorknob turned but the pile of dirty sheets on the floor made it difficult to open.

“What the hell are you guys doing in there?” Flo asked, already annoyed. “I need to put laundry in the dryer.” 

We said nothing. The door knob turned again and this time the door cracked open. Timmy smacked a hand against it forcefully and it closed with a thud. 

“Just a sec. We’ll be right out.” I said, sounding panicked. I dropped Timmy to his feet and he groaned, the dismount had been uncomfortable for both of us. In a rush to make it seem as though we’d been putting the sheets in the washer, I pulled my pants up, picked up everything that was on the floor and threw it into the machine with a detergent pod, and turned it on, not even bothering to make sure it was on the right setting.

“My clothes!” Timmy hissed. But it was too late. They were already wet.

“Oh my god. I swear, if you’re fucking in there I’m going to loose my shit.” Flo warned from the other side of the door. 

Timmy looked around helplessly so I pointed to the basket of clean clothes he’d pulled from the dryer earlier. The only thing he found that would fit was a pair of the girls' pj boxers and a matching t-shirt. He held them up to show me with a pained expression. I shrugged an apology because what else could he do. He sighed and quickly put the garments on, looking down at himself and then me, hoping maybe I’d thought of another solution. But I hadn’t. And I couldn’t. Because he looked like a delicious cupcake and my mouth was watering. 

The boxers were short, bubblegum pink with a strawberry print and the top - which was even shorter and exposed his midriff, pale creamy skin just begging to be devoured - was the same intense pink and had a cartoon bunny on its front. My cock twitched. He looked… delicious. 

“Seriously?” he whispered with raised eyebrows, given our situation. He shook his head in a display of exasperation but it was obvious he was pleased that I found him pleasing. He couldn’t hide the blush of his cheeks or the upturned corners of his mouth. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

Flo didn’t seem to notice what Timmy was - or wasn’t - wearing when we opened the door to the laundry, probably looking more guilty than we wanted to look. She walked in grumbling, a basket of dirty clothes propped on her hip. 

“I put your things in the dryer.” Timmy told her as I was ushering him out the door. ‘Why stick around until she notices what you’re wearing’ my insistent nudging was saying .

“Thanks.” she began but then her tone changed. “Hey… are those... MY PYJAMAS?” She’d bellowed the last two words and in lieu of an answer… we ran. Like the cowards we were.

We hid in the bedroom for the rest of the day, knowing better than to risk crossing paths with Flo until she’d calmed down. Besides, she didn’t need to know that I’d asked Timmy to keep the pjs on.

We ordered pizza for dinner and ate quickly at the dining room table, not bothering with formalities, using compostable paper plates and drinking soda straight from the cans to avoid the clean up. Our bellies full, we retired to our respective rooms. The tension was evident but nobody had addressed it. No one had mentioned the pjs - which was good because they were currently balled up at the bottom of Timmy’s laundry basket covered in come - and good nights were barely exchanged. Even Charlie had been surprisingly distant, following Flo’s lead and eating quietly. The straw that broke the camel's back happened late in the night, when we thought the girls had to be sleeping. Their room was not adjacent to ours and given it was late, we weren’t being overly careful. And besides, we’d ‘gotten a room’.

Timmy and I had gone to bed early. I was starting to feel the last few days worth of physical exertion and I fell asleep quickly, Timmy reading next to me, because he wasn’t tired. 

“Vampires don’t need to sleep as much,” he’d reminded me, kissing me softly just moments before I was unconscious. 

Hours later, I was pulled from what I thought was a rather excellent dream, only to realize it wasn’t a dream at all, which was even better. I was lying on my back and Timmy was sprawled out between my thighs. Sensation was intense, and everywhere. I don’t know how long he’d been down there but by the time my brain was awake, I was on the verge of exploding and I couldn't tell what was going to send me off the edge. 

Was it his wet tongue on my throbbing cock as he took me into his mouth? Was it the two, no three, slicked fingers pounding a steady but perfectly directed and pressured rhythm in my ass? Or was it going to be the nails of his free hand digging exquisitely painful little crescents into my skin before he dragged them over my nipple, all the way down to my ribs, no doubt leaving burning red streaks in their wake? It didn’t really matter in the end, because everything hit me at once and I was practically blinded by a wave of pleasure so intense I must have screamed.

I came out of my orgasm coma to the sounds of Charlie and Flo arguing in the hallway. Timmy had sat up onto his knees and was staring at the door as though he knew that at any moment someone was going to knock or worse, barge in.

“Flo, stop! Just wait until tomorrow.” Charlie was begging but Flo was having none of it.

“Enough’s enough!” she said angrily and followed it up with a swift, insistent knock on the door.

Timmy sighed, frustration rising in him as well. He slowly came to sit next to me and once I was sitting as well, he pulled the comforter up to our bellies to hide our nakedness.

“Come in,” he said in a way that made it clear he’d prefer for them to stay out. Not taking the hint, Flo walked in, followed closely by Charlie who was looking from Timmy to her girlfriend anxiously. 

“What?” he asked before they’d even made it all the way into the room.

“Do you know what fucking time it is?” Flo questioned, barked really, not bothering to let us answer. “It’s three o’clock in the morning. It’s bad enough that we have to walk in on you fucking like animals all over the damned place but now we have to be woken up in the middle of the night because you two can’t keep it down?” Her inflection implied a question, but really it was a statement.

“You wanted us to get a room,” Timmy offered, before she could continue ranting. “Well, this is a room. In fact, it’s my room, in the apartment I pay for; which makes it my apartment. So unless I’m missing something, I’m pretty sure I can do what I want, when I want and where I want. If you have a problem with that, there’s no lease agreement keeping you here. You’re welcome to leave at your discretion.”

Well, that escalated quickly, I thought, but opted to stay in my corner. Being stuck between an angry vampire and an equally pissed off werewolf did not seem like a safe place to be.

“Fine! We can go right now. Charlie, go pack a bag.” Flo said, calling his bluff. Timmy growled.

“You can go. She stays here.” he said, staking his claim and making his position known. 

Had they learned nothing from the morning they’d withheld information from Charlie and tried to make decisions for her? Obviously they were too busy puffing up their chests to see the way she was seething behind them. ‘I see you, Kiddo.’ I thought and smiled understandingly when our eyes met.

“Oh you think so, huhn?” Flo laughed dismissively, as though there was no way Charlie was staying if she was going. In fact she sounded condescendingly certain of it.

“I do.” he validated with such calm it was frightening. "Deal with the situation as it is or get the fuck out of my house. Those are your options. Either way, Charlotte stays here.” 

Was anybody else both terrified and incredible turned on by how scary he’d gotten suddenly? No? Just me then, apparently. Flo just scoffed at the way he'd used Charlie's full name instead of the diminutive. They faced off silently for a few seconds, though it felt much longer, and seeing that Flo didn’t appear to have any further grievance to add to the charges, Timmy made his final statement. 

“Now, I’ve said all I have to say on the matter. So you can keep being a bitch and griping about whatever other issues are bothering you if you want, but go and do that in your kennel.” Timmy spat dismissively, temper and disdain apparent not only in his words but also in the way his eyes had turned liquid gold and his face had become all sharp angles.

Flo reacted physically to the slight. It was as though her entire body was beginning to morph, muscles and bones preparing to shift and rearrange themselves into a new being. Her eyes, like Timmy’s, changed when she turned into the monster, although hers turned an icy blue that faded to silver.

“HEYYYYYY! ENOUGH!” Charlie hollered, anger hardening her features in a way that reminded me of Timmy. All signs of softness were gone. “You DO NOT talk to her that way, do you understand me?” she demanded, pointing a finger in her great-great-grandfather’s direction with no reverence for the many years he had on her or their relationship. “Because so help me God TIMOTHEE, I will pack up my shit and follow her out that door.” Timmy went to argue but thought better of it and shut his mouth. “And you,” Charlie continued, turning to face Flo, the same pointed finger now mere inches from the mouth of a soon to be wolf and yet she had absolutely no fear. “This is the happiest I have seen him since… well EVER. In the twenty-four years that I’ve known him, he has not once put himself first. I think we can cut him some slack for wanting to enjoy himself a little now. Even if he is acting like a disrespectful horny teenager about it. Do I make myself clear?” 

Everybody nodded, looking thoroughly reprimanded. Though Flo had stopped shifting, she looked so properly chastised that had she had time to grow a tail, it would be between her legs right now.

“Did nobody realize that a Blue Moon was coming?” Charlie demanded of us. Again nobody answered. I had no idea what a blue moon was but clearly it wasn’t good given how both Timmy and Flo were looking at Charlie; something akin to being told there was a price on your head I would imagine. “Of course not. Because while you two were busy treating me like an overly emotional child and keeping shit from me, nobody thought to look at a calendar. Meanwhile, here we are, all locked up tight together. Smart. Good call. This is gonna end well.”

“What’s a Blue Moon?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t as dire as their faces were making it out to be. Vampire purges, blood binds and werewolf mafia hits were already a lot to deal with.

“A Blue Moon is when there are two full moons in the same month. It only happens every couple of years but when it does, that second full moon plays havoc on the supernatural world by emphasising their most basic instincts.” she explained. “Which is obviously why YOU have been 'lusting' all over the apartment like a horny 16 year old," she theorized, finger pointing at Timmy again. 

"What's his excuse?" Flo grumbled petulantly in my direction. Charlie ignored her.

What was my excuse? Other than he was fucking hot. And there was the blood bind obviously. And regardless of that, I liked him. And why did I need an excuse, again? Had she looked at him? 

“AND… it also explains why YOU are irritable as fuck." Charlie said emphatically, letting Flo know she was equally to blame for the current state of affairs.

“Shit!” Flo said, calm now that Charlie had put everyone back in their places, realizing Charlie was very likely right.

“Fuck!” Timmy seconded. 

“Right!” Charlie said with a definitive nod once she was sure tempers had been quelled. “So, now that everyone is on the same page, how about we all go back to bed and tomorrow morning we can have a nice conversation about the new rules we are going to set in place. Because I sure as hell am not going to be playing mediator between the of you for the next 6 months and frankly I'd like to stop walking around with my eyes closed for fear of finding my Poppie and my Nana fucking in the middle of the hallway." I had to contain a chuckle at the way she had just dramatically shuddered. “And also, we are going to have to figure out what the next few night’s sleeping arrangements are going to be because clearly you two cannot both be under the same roof when the Blue Moon rises.” 

There was a finality to her statement that made it clear that this was going to be the end of this issue for now. When nobody dared interject, Charlie kissed both me and Timmy on the cheek, muttered a quick “Goodnight!” and she and Flo left, closing the door behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to LostCol for the editing and correction of my frenchness (that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.) I couldn't get through these fics without you.

**Author's Note:**

> Right now this story is looking like it will be be 7 chapters but if my past work has taught me anything it's that I have a great talent at turning two chapters into five (cough - Exorcism - cough) so please be patient with me if the chapter count changes.
> 
> In case you were wondering, the song Flo sings in the bar is also the song that inspired this entire fic. If you'd like to listen to it, here is a link:  
> https://open.spotify.com/track/2opyAm6zOyjR0An5LkblfN?si=W9XcPR8aRpSUf2Vp1zG6uA
> 
> I am @JoliePrudence on Tumblr, it's a new blog and I am rather lax at updates but I love to chat.


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